Objective: Misperception of sexual intent is linked to incidence of sexual assault. The present study tested the effects of gender, alcohol consumption, and leaving a party together, in isolation and in interaction, on perceptions of sexual intent. Participants: Undergraduates (N = 438) completed an online survey between Winter 2017 and Winter…

Sexual violence is an issue every college in America must work to prevent. Critical race scholars such as Derrick Bell may argue sexual violence can be viewed through a lens of race because racism is ordinary and not aberrational (Crewe, 2021). Historical context can affect the perceptions racialized groups or populations have when discussing…

Legal scholars have argued that laws have an "expressive function", specifically that sexual assault laws may convey social-level messages that victims are culpable for crimes against them. In a university sample, we conducted the first experimental test of legal scholars' proposal, hypothesizing that legal messages--specifically their…

This study explored whether the attractiveness of a teacher affected perceptions of teacher sexual misconduct. Respondents (120 female and 108 male undergraduates) read scenarios depicting teacher sexual misconduct varied by gender dyad (male teacher-female student and female teacher-male student) and two levels of attractiveness (very attractive…

Child sexual abuse changes the lives of countless children. Child sexual abuse victims experience short and long term negative outcomes that affect their daily functioning. In this study, undergraduate students' perceptions of CSA were obtained using vignettes with an adult or child perpetrator and a general questionnaire. Results indicated…

This study evaluated the effects of a sexual victimization history and the contextual features of sexual activity and alcohol use on the effectiveness of women's responses to 44 written vignettes describing diverse dating and social situations. One hundred and one undergraduate women reported their history of sexual victimization and provided…

The grayest areas of defining child sexual abuse appear to involve the age and sex of the individuals involved, resulting in a potential for different attributions regarding child sexual abuse across individuals. As a result, this study examines the responses of 262 male and female college student participants after viewing a series of…

Objective: This study evaluated the effects of sexual victimization history, rape myth acceptance, implicit attention, and recent learning on the cognitive processes underlying undergraduate women's explicit risk judgments. Method: Participants were 194 undergraduate women between 18 and 24 years of age. The sample was ethnically diverse and…

This study examined perceptions of child sexual abuse and attributions of responsibility in a cross-sectional convenience sample of 384 African-American undergraduates using a scenario manipulating the age of the victim, gender of the victim, and gender of the perpetrator. Multiple interactions of respondent, victim, and perpetrator gender on…

This study explored whether student age influenced perceptions of teacher sexual misconduct. Participants (300 undergraduates) read scenarios depicting teacher sexual misconduct in which the student's age was varied (9, 12, 15), and then answered questions about their perceptions. Data were analyzed with 2 (respondent gender) x 2 (cross-gender…

This study investigated attitudes toward juvenile sex offenders and factors influencing those attitudes. Additionally, the influences of perpetrator characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity on societal attitudes towards intervention requirements were also investigated. Overall, attitudes toward juvenile sex offenders and their treatment…