A Schema of Denial: The Influence of Rape Myth Acceptance on Beliefs, Attitudes, and Processing of Affirmative Consent Campaign Messages

Association between Community Violence, Disorder and School Environment with Bullying among School Adolescents in Sao Paulo - Brazil

The role of contextual-level factors in bullying is still not clear, and evidence is mostly from high-income countries. Our objective was to investigate the association between community violence, disorder, school environment and bullying among school adolescents. We used data from a representative sample of 9th grade Brazilian adolescents (n = 2108) from the Sao Paulo Project for the social development of children and adolescents (SP - PROSO). Multilevel logistic regression models stratified by sex were used to assess the association between variables at student and school/neighbourhood level and bullying victimization or perpetration. For both sexes, we found that adolescents who perceived high violence between students and high school disorder were more likely to be bullies and victims. Boys who perceived high community violence and disorder in their neighbourhood were more likely to be bullies (OR_3tertile = 2.73 CI95%: 1.57-4.74). Girls attending schools where the principal reported high community violence and disorder in the neighbourhood (OR_high = 10.24 CI95%: 2.11-49.59) and inside the school (OR_high = 6.83 CI95%: 1.48-31.56) were more likely to be bullies. Boys from schools whose principal perceived violence between students were less likely to be victims (OR_high = 0.35 CI95%: 0.16-0.78) and bullies (OR_high = 0.21 CI95%: 0.07-0.64). Girls attending schools with signs or posters about tolerance/gender equality and about violence were less (OR = 0.12 CI95%: 0.03-0.50) and more likely (OR = 25.88 CI95%: 4.28-156.63) to report being bullies, respectively. Community violence, disorder and school environment were associated with bullying victimization and perpetration among adolescents. Sex-specific associations should be further investigated. Prevention and management of school violence in adolescence should consider contextual-level characteristics.

Just Say Yes? A Cluster Analytic Approach to Evaluating College Students' Understandings of Affirmative Consent

Affirmative consent policies on college campuses establish more stringent standards for inferring consent to sex. Although these policies often permit nonverbal communication of consent, they rarely outline finer-grained distinctions about which specific behaviors can stand-in for verbal affirmation. It thus remains possible that students hold different understandings of this policy vis-à-vis the nonverbals used to convey and infer consent, which could undermine the purported utility of affirmative consent initiatives. We presently sampled 442 college undergraduates and asked them to rate whether specific behaviors often present during sexual interaction constitute affirmative indicators of consent. We hypothesized that students would separate into one of three groups depending on how restrictive (e.g., verbal communication only), inclusive (e.g., verbal and clear nonverbals) or potentially non-diagnostic (e.g., sexual arousal, passivity) their behavioral definitions were of affirmative consent. Using cluster analysis, we ultimately identified two groups adhering to a restrictive versus more inclusive operationalization. The former cluster understood affirmative consent as comprising verbal affirmation with variable endorsements of specific nonverbals, whereas the latter consistently endorsed a broader set of nonverbals along with variable ascription to behaviors that do not strongly imply consent. Students in the more inclusive group were more sexually experienced, less likely to use condoms, and viewed casual sex more favorably; as well as were likelier to have received sexual assault education from their parents before and during college, as well as from social media. These findings suggest that subgroups of college students construe affirmative consent policy differently and that these understandings may relate broadly to an individual's sexual experiences, attitudes, and/or education.

An Assessment of the Cues College Students Interpret From a Sexual Partner to Determine They Are Refusing

The purpose of this study was to assess the cues college students use to determine a sexual partner is refusing vaginal-penile sex (i.e., refusal interpretations). As a secondary aim, we explored the influence of item wording (not willing/non-consent vs refusal) on college students' self-reported refusal interpretations. A sample of 175 college students from Canada and the United States completed an open-ended online survey where they were randomly assigned to one of two wording conditions (not willing/non-consent vs refusal); students were then prompted to write about the cues they used to interpret their partner was refusing. An inductive coding procedure was used to analyze open-ended data. Themes included explicit and implicit verbal and nonverbal cues. The refusal condition elicited more explicit and implicit nonverbal cues than the not willing/non-consent condition. Frequency results suggested men reported interpreting more explicit and implicit verbal cues. Women reported interpreting more implicit nonverbal cues from their partner. Our findings reflect prior research and appear in line with traditional gender and sexual scripts. We recommend researchers consider using the word refusal when assessing the cues students interpret from their sexual partners as this wording choice may reflect college students' sexual experiences more accurately.

Priming Self-Affirmation Reduces the Negative Impact of High Rape Myth Acceptance: Assessing Women's Perceptions and Judgments of Sexual Assault

Researchers have theorized and empirically shown that compared with low rape myth acceptance (RMA) individuals, those high in RMA are more likely to discount rape prevention messages. These researchers have urged the development of approaches to counteract the defensiveness and related processes that are presumed to cause such discounting. In the present research we empirically tested the effectiveness of a self-affirmation approach designed to reduce defensiveness to and increase engagement with important but potentially self-threatening information about sexual assault. Female participants classified as low or high in RMA were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation or no-affirmation control condition and then read about a controversial case of campus sexual assault. We found support for the effectiveness of such a self-affirmation intervention for high-RMA women. Specifically, on a questionnaire administered after the exposure, affirmed high-RMA women relative to the control group reported greater endorsement of the realistic use of the "yes means yes" standard of consent, higher self-standards in defining consensual sexual behavior, increases in perceived knowledge of available resources for sexual assault victims, lower support of rape myths, and greater support for punishing someone convicted of sexual assault. As expected, for women low in RMA there were no significant differences in reporting on these measures between the affirmation condition and the no-affirmation condition. From an agentic perspective these results are encouraging. This approach may merit further development as part of an intervention for reducing biased processing and increasing the effectiveness of consent campaigns and other sexual violence prevention programs.