No abstract

This study examines relationships among childhood sexual abuse (CSA), risky alcohol use, and adult sexual victimization among bisexual and lesbian women. Half (51.2%) of women reported CSA and 71.2% reported adult sexual victimization. Perpetrators were generally male, and 56.4% of women’s most recent adult sexual victimization incidents occurred after coming-out. Regression results indicated that adult sexual victimization severity was associated with a bisexual identity, more severe CSA history, more lifetime sexual partners, and higher alcohol severity scores. Compared to lesbians, bisexual women reported more severe adult sexual victimization experiences, greater revictimization, riskier drinking patterns, and more lifetime male sexual partners.

Temporal relationships among alcohol use, aggression, and mood were assessed using daily data from 179 college women. Participants called an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system over an 8-week period. The odds of experiencing verbal, sexual and physical aggression (ORs = 2.25, 19.44, 11.84, respectively) were significantly higher on heavy drinking days (M = 7.46 drinks), compared to non-drinking days. Both a history of victimization and greater psychological symptom severity influenced the odds of involvement in verbal aggression. The odds of alcohol consumption were three times higher during the 24 hours following verbal aggression compared with days in which verbal aggression did not occur. On the day immediately following involvement in either verbal or physical aggression, positive mood decreased and negative mood increased. During the week (2-7 days) following sexual aggression women's positive mood was decreased. These findings reinforce the need for interventions aimed at reducing heavy episodic drinking on college campuses.

The ability of 4 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to understand the causal connection between seeing and knowing was investigated. The subjects were tested to determine if they could discriminate between information provided by experimenters who randomly alternated between roles of guesser and knower. In a series of tests, the knower either hid food under 1 of 3 cups or watched as someone else hid the food. The guesser waited outside the room or covered her or his head until the food was hidden. The subjects watched this procedure occur but could not see which cup the food was hidden under. The knower pointed to the correct cup while the guesser pointed to an incorrect one. None of the macaques provided any evidence that they realized the different states of knowledge possessed by the guesser and knower. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that rhesus macaques are incapable of making inferences about the mental states of others.

Little is known about the types and specific circumstances that surround the victimization of women who drink in the public context of bars. This study provides a preliminary description of the types of violence experienced by women bar drinkers and the roles of exposure and impairment as risk factors for encountering bar‐related aggression. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 52 women bar drinkers through self‐administered questionnaires and focus‐group discussions about their lifestyles, alcohol and drug use, and patterns of bar drinking. Nearly half of the women (48.1%) had experienced physical violence (e.g., assault) and one third (32.6%) had experienced either attempted or completed rape associated with drinking in a bar. Our findings indicate that women who regularly drink in bars experience a substantial amount of physical and sexual aggression associated with these settings.