Gender and Sexual Minority College Students: The Risk and Extent of Victimization and Related Health and Educational Outcomes

A multisite survey conducted at eight campuses of a southwestern university system provides the data for the present study, total N = 17,039 with 1,869 gender and sexual minority (GSM) students. Sexual violence was measured using the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES), and analysis included both the participant’s risk of experiencing sexual violence and the extent (or total count) of sexual violence experienced. This study poses the following research questions: What effects do gender identity and sexual orientation have on the risk and extent of sexual violence among students and, among victims, what is the relationship between gender identity/sexual orientation and mental health (posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], depression) and academic environment (disengagement and safety) outcomes for university students? Multilevel, random effect hurdle models captured this sequential victimization dynamic. GSM and cisgender heterosexual (CH) female students are predicted to be 2.6 and 3 times, respectively, as likely to experience sexual violence compared with CH male students. In addition, GSM students experiencing sexual violence are also expected to experience a greater number of sexually violent acts (74% more) over their college career compared with victimized CH male students. The models confirm that the risk of victimization increases over time (13% per year for CH male students), but GSM students are expected to experience an additional (10%) increase in risk of victimization per year compared with CH male students. GSM and CH female students are also predicted to be more likely to have PTSD and experience more severe depression symptoms than CH male students. GSM students are expected to experience significantly higher rates of PTSD, worse depressive symptoms, and greater disengagement than CH female students. The discussion explores how institutions of higher education might recognize the resilience of GSM students and consider the protective potential of social and community support when developing programs or interventions for diverse populations.IC2 Institut

I Want to Get This off My Chest: When Perpetrators Publicly Disclose how They Raped Their Victims

Women live in a world where nearly one in four will experience sexual assault. In fact, sexual violence is now so common that the World Health Organization recently declared it a global epidemic. Despite the prevalence of such incidents, few perpetrators self-identify. In the cases where they did acknowledge their infractions, many perpetrators said they acted as they did because they misconceived a partner’s sexual intention. This current article will argue that confusion about consent serves as more than a potential risk factor; it also provides a reason for disclosing details about the assault. By using the social media website, Reddit.com, we found a connection between confusion about consent and the perpetrators’ desire to recount their actions. Researchers gathered 77 first-hand sexual assault accounts from Reddit.com and then thematically analyzed perpetrators’ statements using an inductive qualitative method, which allows researchers to start with a broad area of study and let theory emerge from the data set. Findings supported the notion that perpetrators’ emotions about consent affected their decisions to disclose. Many expressed a need for catharsis, to “get it off (their) chest.” Others described feeling guilt or remorse, expressing that they felt “sick” with themselves. Still more questioned whether they had crossed a line and wondered whether their experience constituted sexual assault. For these stated reasons, perpetrators turned to Reddit, telling fellow users that they would “like to hear (readers’) opinions.” This study demonstrates that tools such as social media can be used to gain a greater insight into a perpetrator’s mindset. Public policy, education curricula, and prevention programs can implement better language and more effective content by better understanding what confuses perpetrators about the definition and implications of consent

Openness, Anti-Gay Attitudes, and Intervention: Predicting the Time to Stop Anti-Gay Aggression

Previous research using self-report measures found that the Big-Five personality trait openness to experience was the strongest predictor of attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. A secondary data analysis was conducted to evaluate the mediation between openness levels and the time to intervene as a bystander to an anti-gay aggressive scenario. Participants (n = 65) were self-identified heterosexual male undergraduate students who witnessed a staged scene of anti-gay aggression. During the experiment, one confederate was verbally aggressive toward another, ostensibly gay, confederate; participants chose whether and when to intervene. Participants then completed a battery of measures, including the Big Five Personality Inventory (BFI), and the Attitudes Toward Lesbian and Gay Men Scale (ATLG). Openness to experience significantly predicted attitudes toward gay men, which in turn significantly predicted participants’ the time it took participants to intervene. The results highlight the importance of examining both attitudes and personality traits in predicting bystander behavior. These findings may inform bystander intervention techniques and other programs aimed to reduce anti-gay aggression

What Your Data Didn’t Tell You the First Time Around: Advanced Analytic Approaches to Longitudinal Analyses

The present article describes the gap that exists between traditional data analysis techniques and more sophisticated methods that tend to be used more commonly among researchers outside of the study of violence against women. We briefly characterize growth models and person-centered analyses and describe the growing body of work in violence research that has applied these methods. Through an example from our own application of one of these techniques—latent class growth analysis—we highlight the ways that violence against women researchers may benefit from applying these more sophisticated methods to their own data, both past and present

Sort and Sift, Think and Shift: Let the Data Be Your Guide An Applied Approach to Working With, Learning From, and Privileging Qualitative Data

The Sort and Sift, Think and Shift qualitative data analysis approach is an iterative process where analysts dive into data to understand its content, dimensions, and properties, and then step back to assess what they have learned and to determine next steps. Researchers move from establishing an understanding of what is in the data (“Diving In”) to exploring their relationship to the data (“Stepping Back”). This process of “Diving In” and “Stepping Back” is repeated throughout analysis. To conclude, researchers arrive at an evidence-based meeting point that is a hybrid story of data content and researcher knowledge. To illustrate core tenets of Sort and Sift, Think and Shift, we analyzed three focus group transcripts from a study of postnatal care referral behavior by traditional birth attendants in Nigeria; these transcripts came from Syracuse University’s Qualitative Data Repository and were unfamiliar to the analytic team prior to this exercise. We focused on letting the data be our guide into not only the explicit purpose of the interviews, but also into the unexpected discoveries that arise when inquiring about people’s lived experiences. Situating our efforts within an Initial Learning Period, each member of the team closely read each transcript, and then identified powerful quotations that made us pause and take note. We documented what we learned from each transcript in an episode profile which contained diagrams and memos. Episode profiles were shared and discussed across the team to identify key points of interest, such as the role of faith in women’s decision-making processes related to their pregnancy and delivery preferences, and concepts of who bears what knowledge about reproductive health. Our engagement in this analytic exercise demonstrates the applicability of qualitative inquiry and Sort and Sift as flexible approaches for applied research

Relationships between drug use and male sexual aggression across time

The relationship between drug use and sexual aggression in a sample of men was examined at five time points from adolescence through the fourth year of college. Hierarchical Linear Modeling explored the relationship between proximal drug use and level of sexual aggression after controlling for proximal alcohol use at each time period. Results revealed that level of proximal drug use was associated significantly with sexual aggression severity: increased levels of drug use predict increased levels of sexual aggression across time. A second set of analyses explored the relationship between distal marijuana use and level of sexual aggression after controlling for distal alcohol use. Results indicated that increased levels of marijuana use predicted increased levels of sexual aggression across time. A third set of analyses explored the relationship between distal use of other illicit drugs and level of sexual aggression after controlling for distal alcohol use. Results mirrored the results of the second set of analyses. Results are discussed in terms of drug use as a component of deviant lifestyles that may include sexually aggressive behavior

The company they keep: how social networks influence male sexual aggression

The goal of the present study was to add to the existing knowledge concerning predictors of sexually coercive behaviors. After replicating an existing model that details individual-level factors predicting sexual coercion, an alternative model incorporating peer-level factors was built and tested against the existing model. Findings suggest that perceived peer attitudes concerning violence against women significantly influence corresponding individual attitudes. Furthermore, peer group density was found to significantly moderate the relationship between perceived peer attitudes toward violence against women and hostile individual attitudes toward women, in that highly dense peer groups had the strongest positive influence on individual members. The main effect of peer network density on hostile individual attitudes, however, was significantly negative-suggesting that individuals with highly dense peer groups tend to have less hostile attitudes toward women. Taken together, the present findings suggest that perceived peer attitudes and the structure of peer networks have a notable bearing on individual attitudes of violence and hostility toward women, factors long known to predict violent physical and sexual behaviors targeted at women. Implications are discussed in terms of future avenues for research and application to peer-based intervention strategies