Sexual Experience and Coercive Sexual Victimization Questionnaire

This study evaluated the effects of sexual victimization history, alcohol-related problems, psychological distress, and disinhibited sex-related alcohol expectancies on the effectiveness of women’s response performance in hypothetical social situations depicting risk for sexual victimization. Two hundred and forty-five undergraduate women first listened to audiotaped descriptions of the hypothetical social situations and imagined that they were the woman depicted in each scenario. They then were given a response to each situation deemed in prior work by experts in the sexual victimization research area to be effective at reducing risk for sexual victimization and asked to provide each response verbally while being videotaped. Participants then completed measures assessing prior victimization history, alcohol-related problems, psychological distress, and disinhibited sex-related alcohol expectancies. Experts in the sexual violence research area rated participants’ responses with respect to how effective each response was in decreasing their risk for having an unwanted sexual experience, defined as an experience in which the woman may be verbally or physically coerced into having a sexual contact of any kind with a man. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that disinhibited sex-related alcohol expectancies were associated positively with women’s response performance, indicating that women who endorsed greater disinhibited sex-related alcohol expectancies provided more effective responses to risky hypothetical situations. Findings suggest possible interventions aimed at reducing women’s risk of sexual victimization.

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An Event-Level Investigation of Factors Associated With Young Women’s Experiences of Coerced Consensual Sex

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/0886260516683178 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 35 (1-2) ◽

pp. 384-402 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Cynthia A. Stappenbeck ◽

Jeanette Norris ◽

Rhiana Wegner ◽

Amanda E. B. Bryan ◽

Kelly Cue Davis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sexual Victimization ◽

Alcohol Intoxication ◽

Sexual Experience ◽

Estimating Equation ◽

Equation Model ◽

Level Data ◽

Consensual Sex ◽

Main Effects ◽

The Relationship ◽

Victimization History

Little is known about instances of coerced consensual sex in which women report both that they consented to have sex and that their partner used coercive tactics (e.g., made threats) to get them to have sex when they did not want to. Yet, these experiences are frequently reported by young sexually active women. We examined the relationship between sexual victimization history and the woman’s level of alcohol intoxication in the likelihood of experiencing coerced consensual sex using event-level data collected over a 1-year period from 548 young adult nonproblem drinking women who engaged in sexual activity with men. Twenty percent ( n = 112) reported at least one incident of coerced consensual sex. A generalized estimating equation model revealed main effects of daily estimated blood alcohol content (eBAC) and sexual victimization severity. The more women increased their alcohol consumption above their own average and the more severe their sexual victimization history, the more likely they were to experience coerced consensual sex. Our findings highlight the fact that coercion and consent are not mutually exclusive in some situations and shed light on this important yet understudied coercive sexual experience.

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Sexual Attitudes Moderate the Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Women’s Risk Judgments

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/0886260515604414 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 228-249 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Elizabeth A. Yeater ◽

Teresa A. Treat ◽

Richard J. Viken ◽

Kathryn L. Lenberg

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Processes ◽

Sexual Victimization ◽

Sexual Attitudes ◽

Alcohol Intoxication ◽

Sexual Experience ◽

Lower Sensitivity ◽

Social Situations ◽

Alcohol Condition ◽

Risk Judgments ◽

Victimization History

This study evaluated the effects of alcohol intoxication, sexual attitudes, and sexual victimization history on the cognitive processes underlying undergraduate women’s risk judgments. Participants were 116 unmarried, undergraduate women between the ages of 21 and 29. The sample was diverse ethnically and composed primarily of heterosexual women. Stimuli were written vignettes describing social situations that varied on dimensions of sexual victimization risk and potential impact on women’s popularity. Participants were assigned randomly to an alcohol or a no-alcohol condition, and completed an explicit classification task in which they rated how risky each situation was in terms of their having an unwanted sexual experience. They then completed the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) and the Sociosexuality Scale (SS); SES responses were used to quantify the severity of victimization experiences, and SS responses were used to measure endorsement of positive attitudes toward casual, impersonal sex. Although there was no main effect for condition, higher sociosexuality predicted use of higher thresholds for judging situations as risky. Importantly, sociosexuality interacted with condition such that higher sociosexuality predicted lower sensitivity to risk information in the alcohol condition but not in the no-alcohol condition. More severe victimization history predicted increased use of popularity impactwhen judging risk. This study emphasizes the importance of identifying specific cognitive processes affected by alcohol that may explain why women have difficulty processing contextual cues signaling risk in social situations. It demonstrates also the relevance of examining individual difference factors that may exacerbate the relationship between intoxication and cognitive processing of risk-relevant information.

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Ethnicity and Sexual Attitudes Affect Women’s Judgments of Sexual Victimization Risk

Violence Against Women ◽

10.1177/1077801216640382 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 163-177 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jennifer N. Crawford ◽

Kari A. Leiting ◽

Elizabeth A. Yeater ◽

Steven P. Verney ◽

Kathryn L. Lenberg

Keyword(s):

Sexual Victimization ◽

Sexual Attitudes ◽

Sexual Experience ◽

Ethnically Diverse ◽

Indian Women ◽

Undergraduate Women ◽

Victimization Risk ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

Victimization History ◽

Hispanic White

This study evaluated the effects of ethnicity, sexual attitudes, and sexual victimization history on women’s judgments of sexual victimization risk in a set of dating and social scenarios. An ethnically diverse sample of undergraduate women ( n = 408) were asked to rate how risky the situations were in terms of having an unwanted sexual experience. American Indian women rated the situations as more risky than did non-Hispanic White or Hispanic women. In addition, participants with more positive attitudes toward a range of sexual experiences rated the situations as less risky than did women with less positive attitudes. Possible implications are discussed.

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Discrepant Responding Across Measures of College Students’ Sexual Victimization Experiences: Conceptual Replication and Extension

10.31219/osf.io/knvra ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

RaeAnn Elizabeth Anderson ◽

Douglas L. Delahanty

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Sexual Victimization ◽

Short Form ◽

Sexual Experience ◽

College Men ◽

Violence Victimization ◽

Two Measures ◽

Experience Survey ◽

Moderate Range

Sexual violence victimization affects approximately 1 in 5 college women and 1 in 6 college men; however, rates of sexual victimization vary widely, in part due to measurement issues. The present study is the first to compare the Sexual Experience Survey-Short Form Victimization to a measure of sexual victimization designed to capture gender differences, the Post-Refusal Sexual Persistence Scale-Victimization (PRSPS-V). Prior research has compared the perpetration versions of these questionnaires and found large discrepancies. College students (N = 673: 367 women, 298 men, 8 gender minority) were surveyed. The SES-SFV identified 260 cases of sexual victimization whereas the PRSPS-V identified 330 cases; this discrepancy was largest for men. While percent agreement between the two measures ranged from 79.9-92.0%, kappa estimates indicated that agreement was in the weak to moderate range. Kappa estimates tended to be poorer for men than women. These results highlight poor precision in the measurement of sexual violence victimization, even when using well-established measures. The PRSPS-V identified more cases and may be less gender biased. We discuss how differences in questionnaire structure, item structure, and operationalization of consent may account for discordance between the SES-SFV and PRSPS-V even when controlling for item content.

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