Back to Symposium Presentations Summary
S-5.-INFERRING CONSENT/
INFERRING DANGER: THE ROLE OF PERCEPTIONS IN SEXUAL ASSAULT
Organizers:
Norris, Jeanette
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
White, Jacquelyn W.
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro,
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
Discussant:
Arias, Ileana
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA.
Depending on circumstances,
some men view sexual aggression as seduction.
But despite the high risk of acquaintance sexual assault, women often do
not perceive social encounters as potentially dangerous.
This symposium will first examine women’s perceptions of acquaintance
sexual assault risk and their implications for engaging in high risk behaviors.
Jacquelyn White’s longitudinal study of sexual assault risk will form
the basis for examining factors influencing women’s risk perceptions and how
they influence high risk behaviors. Kathleen
Parks will present results of an experiment that examined drinking women’s
perceptions of a man’s sexual advances. The
symposium will then examine factors that influence men’s interpretation of
forced sex as consensual. Antonia
Abbey will present findings from a survey of more than 300 men, one-third of
whom were self-reported sexual aggressors, who rated a broad range of sexually
assaultive behaviors. Jeanette
Norris will focus on findings from an experiment which compared inebriated and
sober men’s perceptions of an eroticized rape.
The discussant, Ileana Arias, will examine the differing perspectives of
men and women and how these may contribute to the commission of sexual assault.
S-5.1-A longitudinal
perspective on women’s risk perception
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro,
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
Data from a five-year
longitudinal investigation of sexual assault experiences spanning adolescence
through four years of college address four questions: How does risk perception
for stranger and acquaintance assault change over time? How does prior
victimization affect perceived risk across time? Does perceived risk affect
likelihood of engaging in behaviors known to increase the likelihood of an
assault, in particular number of sex partners and use of alcohol and drugs? Does
perceived risk act as a risk or protective factor for further victimization?.
Results indicated that although the perceived risk of sexual assault declined
across the four years of college, perceived risk of assault by a stranger
remained higher than perceived risk of assault by an acquaintance. Results also
revealed that victims of adolescent victimization reported a greater risk
perception than nonvictims across the four collegiate years. Furthermore,
victimization in one year of college elevated risk perceptions in the subsequent
years, even when controlling for prior victimization. Additionally, there was a
relationship between perceptions one year and engaging in high risk behaviors in
the subsequent year. However, this was true only for women without a sexual
victimization in the preceding year. Among women without a prior victimization,
perception of risk was associated with higher levels of alcohol and drug use, as
well as the number of sex partners, in the following years. Apparently, the
awareness of risk does not lead to a reduction in risky behaviors for women
without a prior victimization. Finally, analyses indicated that for women with a
prior history of victimization, perceptions of risk are not related to future
victimization. However, for women with no prior victimization perceptions were
related to an increased risk of victimization in subsequent years. These results
have implication for deterrence programs. Simply alerting women to the
possibility of acquaintance assault, i.e., increasing their perceived risk, does
not lead to a reduction in risky behaviors, i.e., alcohol/drug use and multiple
sex partners, nor to a reduction in the likelihood of assault. In fact, the
opposite appears to be the case for women with no prior victimization histories.
S-5.2.-Dangerous body
language: alcohol’s effect on women’s perception of men during social
interactions in bars
Research Institute on Addictions, Buffalo, New York , USA.
Previous findings from my
research suggest that women are at greater risk for experiencing aggression
associated with drinking in a bar when they have more contact and interactions
with men, experience more behavioral impairment after consuming alcohol, and
have made “riskier” choices (e.g., leaving alone with a man, bringing a man
to her home) when interacting with male strangers in the past (Parks, 1999).
Women bar drinkers have described overtly sexual or suggestive male behavior
that makes women uncomfortable during social interactions in bars (Parks et al.,
1998). In a study by Norris, Nurius,
and Dimeff (1996) women indicated that alcohol makes it difficult to recognize
and successfully resist unwanted sexual advances. Using female participants and male confederates, the present
study was designed to assess a woman’s perception of a social interaction with
a male stranger after she had consumed either a low (.02 g/100ml Blood Alcohol
Level; BAL) or high (.08 g/100ml BAL) dose of alcohol.
The male confederates were trained to engage in five overt, sexually
suggestive “probe” behaviors during a 20 minute interaction with the female
participant, after a period of getting to know her and drinking with her in the
bar laboratory. The probe behaviors
included: complimenting her appearance, moving closer, touching her arm,
whispering in her ear, and touching her hair.
We hypothesized that women would respond more positively and less
negatively to the men under the high dose alcohol condition.
We also hypothesized that women in the high dose condition would be less
aware of these probe behaviors than women in the low dose condition.
This research is unique in the use of actual social interactions with
female participants and trained male confederates, rather than written or
video-taped vignettes of social scenarios, to assess alcohol’s role in risk
perception. Changes in the
women’s perceptions and non-verbal behavior during these social interactions
will be discussed in terms of previous findings on recognition and avoidance of
situations that are potentially dangerous for sexual aggression.
S-5.3.-Perceptions of
forced sex:
what
determines how men label it?
Abbey, A., McAuslan,
P., Zawacki, T., Buck, P. and Clinton, M
Department of Community Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA.
College women in the United
States report being the victims of sexual assault at a much higher rate than
college men report being the perpetrators of sexual assault.
For example, in a survey of 6,159 women and men, 54% of the women
reported experiencing some type of sexual assault since the age of 14.
In contrast, 25% of the men reported perpetrating sexual assault since
age 14 (Koss, et al., 1987). Some
of this difference may be explained by women being sexually assaulted by
individuals who are not college men or by some college men sexually assaulting
many women. A third explanation is
that men and women perceive these events differently.
Thus, a woman feels that she was sexually assaulted but the man does not
realize it. From our perspective,
if a woman reports that she was forced to have sex she should be believed.
However, it is important to know if perpetrators do not always realize
how their actions were perceived. This
presentation explores men's perceptions of forced sexual experiences and what
factors relate to whether they label the event as consensual sex or sexual
assault. Self-report questionnaires were completed by 343 male college students
from a large, urban university. Sexual
assault perpetration was measured with a modified version of Koss et al.'s
(1987) instrument. Twelve
behaviorally specific questions asked about acts that constitute sexual assault
without using that label. Thirty-three
percent of the men reported committing some type of sexual assault (15% sexual
contact, 10% verbally coerced sexual intercourse, 3% attempted rape, and 5%
rape). Multiple regression analyses were conducted with the dependent measure
being participants' perceptions of the extent to which the physically or
verbally forced sex that they acknowledged committing was consensual (rated on a
7-point scale). Surprisingly, the
type of assault committed did not influence perceptions of how consensual the
sex was. Significant predictors
included the amount of physical force used, how well he knew the woman, if they
had engaged in some type of consensual sexual activity (such as kissing), and
his beliefs about alcohol as a disinhibitor of inappropriate behavior.
The implications of these results for prevention programming are
discussed.
S-5.4.-Men’s
perceptions of an eroticized rape: the role of rape myth attitudes and
contextual factors
Norris, J., Martell, J.
and George, W.H.
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
Prior research has shown
that judgments of what constitutes rape can vary as a function of both
individual difference traits and contextual factors (see, for instance, Norris
& Cubbins, 1992). Thus, it is
possible that a man may commit a sexual assault because he believes that he is
seducing a woman, even if she clearly resists his advances. The present study addresses two questions related to this
proposition. First, under what
circumstances do some men view sexual assault as sexually consensual behavior?
Second, would any of these circumstances lead a man to indicate a
willingness to commit sexual assault himself?
In addition to a strong belief in rape myths, three
contextual factors thought to influence this phenomenon are alcohol consumption,
the victim’s reaction to an assault, and the amount of violence inflicted.
A 2 (Alcohol - .08 mg% BAC/ no alcohol) X 2 (victim reaction - pleasure/
distress) X 3 (violence - low/ moderate/ high), between-subjects factorial
design was conducted. A community
sample of 132 men, 21 - 45 years old, was recruited through newspaper
advertisements. Beverage administration was followed by reading one of six
versions of a three-page story depicting the forcible rape of a female character
by a male character. Multiple regressions were
performed predicting subjects’ perceptions of the male character’s behavior,
as well as their own willingness to behave like the assailant, from rape myth
attitudes and the contextual factors. Several significant main effects and interactions were found.
In general both alcohol consumption and the victim reacting with pleasure
resulted in the perception that the male character’s behavior was seductive,
justified, caring and moral and in less violence being employed than among sober
subjects or when the victim expressed distress.
However, only alcohol consumption increased subjects’ reported
willingness to behave like the assailant. Rape
myth attitudes similarly affected subjects’ perceptions and interacted with
each of the contextual variables. Findings
will be discussed in terms of alcohol’s myopia effect, which results in
overattention to permissive cues. In
addition, these findings indicate the importance of addressing men’s rape myth
attitudes in rape prevention programs.