scholarly journals It Happened to a Friend of Mine: The Influence of Perspective-taking on the Acknowledgment of Sexual Assault Following Ambiguous Sexual Encounters

2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052095767
Author(s):  
Veronica M. Lamarche ◽  
Laurie James-Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Sexual Experience ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Sexual Experiences ◽  
Sexual Encounters

Failure to acknowledge that one has been the victim of sexual violence is an important, yet understudied, barrier that prevents women from seeking appropriate support following sexual violence. Drawing from a literature of demonstrating the benefits of self-distancing when evaluating emotionally charged personal information, the effects of self-distancing on acknowledgment of sexual assault were tested. Four experimental studies ( Ntotal = 1,609) manipulated perspective-taking, either by asking women to imagine a series of hypothetical sexual encounters as experiences that happened to themselves or to their friends, or by asking women to describe a sexual experience from a first- or third-person perspective. Findings from the studies suggest that taking another person’s perspective can help women to label ambiguous sexual experiences as more inappropriate and coercive. Notably, this did not seem to stem from women downplaying or dismissing experiences when they imagined themselves, as they reported anticipating more negative and less positive emotions in the scenarios where they imagined themselves compared to a friend. Nonetheless, in spite of the stronger anticipated negative emotional response when imagining themselves, women were less open to information about resources associated with sexual assault and support when they imagined themselves compared to a friend. This pattern of findings replicated for own, past sexual experiences but only to the extent that women spontaneously engaged in distanced perspective-taking themselves. This research suggests in addition to using contextual information to disambiguate and determine whether a sexual experience was inappropriate, taking a distanced perspective might provide a route through which women can come to terms with the experience and open up to the use of community-based services and sexual assault resources.

Unwanted Sexual Experiences and Cognitive Appraisals That Evoke Mental Contamination

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryotaro Ishikawa ◽  
Osamu Kobori ◽  
Eiji Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Cognitive Appraisal ◽  
Sexual Experience ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Cognitive Appraisals ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Sexual Experiences ◽  
Unwanted Sexual Experiences ◽  
Mental Contamination ◽  
Unwanted Sexual Experience

Background: Mental contamination is a psychological sense of contamination that involves an internal, emotional feeling of dirtiness that may be evoked by unwanted thoughts and images, such as sexual assaults. Aims: This study aimed to investigate which types of unwanted sexual experiences evoke the strongest mental contamination, and to test the hypothesis that cognitive appraisals of an unwanted sexual experience predict indices of mental contamination (i.e. feeling of dirtiness, urge to wash, internal negative emotions, and external negative emotions). Method: 148 female participants were asked to recall their most distressing unwanted sexual experiences. Indices of mental contamination and cognitive appraisals of the experience were then assessed. Results: Our findings indicated that individuals recalling experiences related to rape felt more intense feelings of dirtiness than individuals recalling other types of unwanted sexual experience, such as verbal sexual assault, visual sexual assault, and forcible touching/frottage. In addition, hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that a cognitive appraisal of perceived violation predicted all of the indices of mental contamination after controlling anxiety, depression, and fear of contact contamination. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated that an individual is at greatest risk of mental contamination if she has experienced rape/attempted rape, and if she makes a cognitive appraisal of violation regarding the incident.

Analysis of Korean adolescents' sexual experience and substance use

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 809-817
Author(s):  
Gyu-Young Lee ◽  
Yun-Jung Choi
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Illicit Drugs ◽  
Sexual Experience ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Unprotected Sex ◽  
Sexual Experiences ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Korean Adolescents

We investigated the relationship between Korean adolescents' sexual experience—including, kissing, petting, and sexual intercourse—and their alcohol consumption and use of illegal drugs and tobacco. We analyzed data taken from the responses of 74,186 adolescents who had participated in the 2012 Korean Youth Health Behavior Online Survey. Variables regarding sexual experiences, experience of contraception, and substance and alcohol use were extracted and analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression. The results showed that fewer than 30% of the respondents reported always using contraception, and almost half reported rarely using contraception. The number of boys and girls reporting having had sexual experiences increased from 2 to 4 times when they also reported use of illicit drugs, smoking tobacco, or alcohol consumption. The results highlight a need for school-based sex education supported by a national policy and the provision of basic resources to reduce the incidence of unprotected sex and to improve healthy behavior of adolescents.

The Right to Bodily Integrity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Brysk
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bodily Integrity ◽  
Global Pattern ◽  
Popular Resistance ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Right

In Chapter 7, we profile the global pattern of sexual violence. We will consider conflict rape and transitional justice response in Peru and Colombia, along with the plight of women displaced by conflict from Syria and Central America, and limited international policy response. State-sponsored sexual violence and popular resistance to reclaim public space will be chronicled in Egypt as well as Mexico. We will track intensifying public sexual assault amid social crisis in Turkey, South Africa, and India, which has been met by a wide range of public protest, legal reform, and policy change. For a contrasting experience of the privatization of sexual assault in developed democracies, we will trace campus, workplace, and military rape in the United States.

Undergraduates’ Disclosures of Unwanted Sexual Experiences: Who, Why, and When?

2019 ◽  
pp. 107780121988518
Author(s):  
C. J. Eubanks Fleming ◽  
Emma C. Muscari
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Experiences ◽  
Unwanted Sexual Experiences ◽  
First Response ◽  
History Of ◽  
Assault Survivors

This study evaluated patterns of sexual assault disclosures as well as the response and impact of that response on assault survivors. The sample consisted of 217 undergraduates with a history of sexual assault (89.5% female, 76.5% Caucasian). Participants reported the order in which they disclosed and the nature and impact of the response they received. Results indicated that the majority of participants told close peers first and perceived the first response to be supportive. These findings are encouraging but also demonstrate the need for improving the response that an assault survivor receives.

Mandatory Reporting and Adolescent Sexual Assault

2021 ◽  
pp. 152483802110302
Author(s):  
Caroline Bailey ◽  
Jessica Shaw ◽  
Abril Harris
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mandatory Reporting ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Long Term Consequences ◽  
The Impact

Adolescents experience alarmingly high rates of sexual violence, higher than any other age-group. This is concerning as sexual violence can have detrimental effects on teens’ personal and relational well-being, causing long-term consequences for the survivor. Still, adolescents are hesitant to report the assault or seek out services and resources. When an adolescent survivor does seek out services, they may interact with a provider who is a mandatory reporter. This scoping review sought to synthesize the current U.S.-based research on the role, challenges, and impact of mandatory reporting (MR) in the context of adolescent sexual assault. Database searches using key words related to MR, sexual assault, and adolescence identified 29 peer-reviewed articles. However, none of these articles reported on empirical investigations of the phenomenon of interest and instead consisted of case studies, commentaries, and position papers. The scoping review was expanded to provide a lay of the land of what we know about the intersection of adolescent sexual assault and MR. Results of the review indicate that though implemented broadly, MR policies vary between individuals, organizations, and states and have historically been challenging to implement due to this variation, conflicts with other laws, tension between these policies and providers’ values, and other factors. Based on the available literature, the impact of MR in the context of adolescent sexual assault is unknown. There is a critical need for research and evaluation on the implementation and impact of MR policies, especially in the context of adolescents and sexual violence.

scholarly journals [De]-Centering the Victim: Police Perceptions of Victims of Sexual Violence through a Comparative Lens of Evidence Collection and Processing

2021 ◽  
pp. 155708512110319
Author(s):  
Deborah White ◽  
Lesley McMillan
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Evidence Collection ◽  
Police Perceptions

Police are central to the statutory response to sexual violence, shaping the direction an investigation may take. Evidence provided by victims is also key to the processing of sexual assault cases. From a 2013 comparative qualitative study involving interviews with police officers in one province in Canada ( n = 11) and one region in Scotland ( n = 10) who investigate such cases, we discovered striking unanticipated differences between the two groups in terms of how they perceived victims and the evidence they provide. This paper presents a thematic analysis of these data and considers possible implications and explanations.

scholarly journals The Experience of Empathy in Everyday Life

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762199520
Author(s):  
Gregory John Depow ◽  
Zoë Francis ◽  
Michael Inzlicht
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Negatively Associated ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Trait Empathy

We used experience sampling to examine perceptions of empathy in the everyday lives of a group of 246 U.S. adults who were quota sampled to represent the population on key demographics. Participants reported an average of about nine opportunities to empathize per day; these experiences were positively associated with prosocial behavior, a relationship not found with trait measures. Although much of the literature focuses on the distress of strangers, in everyday life, people mostly empathize with very close others, and they empathize with positive emotions 3 times as frequently as with negative emotions. Although trait empathy was negatively associated only with well-being, empathy in daily life was generally associated with increased well-being. Theoretically distinct components of empathy—emotion sharing, perspective taking, and compassion—typically co-occur in everyday empathy experiences. Finally, empathy in everyday life was higher for women and the religious but not significantly lower for conservatives and the wealthy.

The U.S. Marine Corps’ Response to Intimate Partner Sexual Violence: An Analysis of the Family Advocacy Program and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program

2020 ◽  
pp. 0095327X2097439
Author(s):  
Stephanie Bonnes ◽  
Jeffrey H. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Marine Corps ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Sexual Assault Prevention ◽  
Family Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Program ◽  
Assault Prevention ◽  
The U.S

In this article, we show how the U.S. military treats domestic violence and sexual assault as distinct forms of abuse, which has particular consequences for victims of intimate partner sexual violence. We explore how a specific U.S. military branch, the Marine Corps, complicates these issues further by providing services to intimate partner sexual violence victims from two different programs. Analyzing military orders and documents related to Family Advocacy Program and Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program, interviews with eight military prosecutors, and the experiences of one military lawyer, we examine program and interactional-level factors that shape victim services, advocacy, and processes. We find that there are program differences in specialized services, coordinated services, and potential breaches of confidentiality related to victim’s cases. We recommend that the Marine Corps recognize the intersections of sexual violence and domestic violence and offer more tailored services to victims of intimate partner sexual violence.

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