Objective: There are many methodological issues in studying sexual violence, including potential framing effects. Framing effects refer to how researchers communicate the purpose of a study to participants, such as, how the study is advertised or explained. The aim of this study was to investigate if framing effects were associated with differences in participants’ self-reported experiences of sexual violence and related correlates. Methods: College students ( N = 782) were recruited to participate in one of four identical studies that differed in the title: “Questionnaires about Alcohol,” “Questionnaires about Crime,” “Questionnaires about Health,” or “Questionnaires about Sexual Assault.” Participants chose one of the four studies and completed measures of sexual violence as well as attitudinal and behavioral measures in randomized order. Results: We found significantly more reports of childhood sexual abuse (33.6% vs. 18.5%), rape (33.9% vs. 21.1%), higher frequency of victimization ( M = 11.35 vs. 5.44), and greater acknowledged rape for bisexual people (46.2% vs. 0.0%) in the sexual assault (SA) condition compared to other conditions. There were no differences in sexual violence perpetration or attitudinal or behavioral measures. Conclusion: These results revealed that framing effects, based on the study title, affect outcomes in sexual victimization research. Rape was reported 1.6× more in the “Sexual Assault” condition than in the “Health” condition. It is unclear whether these framing effects reflect self-selection bias or framing related increased reports in the SA condition, suppression of reports in other conditions, or a combination thereof.
Survivors of sexual violence have shared their stories with the public through social media in growing numbers. Recent research shows that sexual violence (versus other, less stigmatizing trauma) stories are perceived as more difficult to tell, and their storytellers as less likeable. This is true even when stories have redemptive endings, contradicting an established U.S. cultural preference for redemptive stories. However, it is unknown if sexual violence perceptions generalize to different types of interpersonal violence (IPV) and if audience perceptions vary across 3 major types of IPV (sexual, physical, psychological). This pre-registered replication and extension study investigates these questions with a vignette-based experimental design modeled after 2 published studies by the first and last authors. Broadly, we hypothesized that cultural invalidation of sexual violence stories would extend to any IPV story (vs. non-IPV traumas such as natural disasters), and that within the realm of IPV, cultural invalidation would be more pronounced for psychological violence stories (vs. sexual/physical). Three samples of U.S. adult participants (N=1,045), 2 Nationally Representative and 1 University-based, were randomly assigned online to read 1 of 12 first-person trauma story vignettes and complete self-report surveys of story and storyteller perceptions in a 6 (trauma story: IPV [k=3], non-IPV [k=3]) x 2 (ending: negative, redemptive) between-subjects design. Support for our hypotheses was mixed. IPV (vs. non-IPV) stories were perceived as more difficult to share (η2p = .068) and their storytellers as having less positive personality traits (η2p = .043), even when stories ended redemptively. However, among the 3 IPV types, psychological violence storytellers were not robustly more stigmatized, and sexual violence stories were recognized as particularly difficult to disclose. IPV survivors face obstacles to telling their stories that may hamper both personal recovery and collective momentum for systemic change.
Objective: There are many methodological issues in studying sexual violence, including potential framing effects. Framing effects refer to how researchers communicate the purpose of a study to par-ticipants, such as, how the study is advertised or explained. The aim of the current study was to inves-tigate if framing effects were associated with differences in participants’ self-reported experiences of sexual violence and related correlates. Methods: College students (N = 782) were recruited to par-ticipate in one of four identical studies that differed in the title: “Questionnaires about Alcohol,” “Questionnaires about Crime,” “Questionnaires about Health,” or “Questionnaires about Sexual As-sault.” Participants chose one of the four studies and completed measures of sexual violence as well as attitudinal and behavioral measures in randomized order. Results: We found significantly more reports of childhood sexual abuse (33.6% vs. 18.5%), rape (33.9% vs. 21.1%), higher frequency of vic-timization (M = 11.35 vs. 5.44), and greater acknowledged rape for bisexual people (46.2% vs. 0.0%) in the Sexual Assault condition compared to other conditions. There were no differences in sexual violence perpetration or attitudinal or behavioral measures. Conclusion: These results revealed that framing effects, based on the study title, affect outcomes in sexual victimization research. Rape was reported 1.6x more in the “Sexual Assault” condition than in the “Health” condition. It is unclear whether these framing effects reflect self-selection bias or framing related increased reports in the Sexual Assault condition, suppression of reports in other conditions, or a combination thereof.
Survivors of sexual violence have shared their stories with the public through social media in growing numbers. Recent research shows that sexual violence (versus other, less stigmatizing trauma) stories are perceived as more difficult to tell, and their storytellers less likeable. This is true even when stories have redemptive endings, contradicting an established U.S. cultural preference for redemptive stories. However, it is unknown if sexual violence perceptions generalize to different types of interpersonal violence (IPV) and if audience perceptions vary across 3 major types of IPV (sexual, physical, psychological). This pre-registered replication and extension study investigates these questions with a vignette-based experimental design modeled after 2 published studies by the first and last authors. Broadly, we hypothesized that cultural invalidation of sexual violence stories would extend to any IPV story (vs. non-IPV traumas such as natural disasters), and that within the realm of IPV, cultural invalidation would be more pronounced for psychological violence stories (vs. sexual/physical). Three samples of U.S. adult participants (N=1,045), 2 Nationally Representative and 1 University-based, were randomly assigned online to read 1 of 12 first-person trauma story vignettes and complete self-report surveys of story and storyteller perceptions in a 6 (trauma story: IPV [k=3], non-IPV [k=3]) x 2 (ending: negative, redemptive) between-subjects design. Support for our hypotheses was mixed. IPV (vs. non-IPV) stories were perceived as more difficult to share (η2p = .068) and their storytellers as having less positive personality traits (η2p = .043), even when stories ended redemptively. However, among the 3 IPV types, psychological violence storytellers were not robustly more stigmatized, and sexual violence stories were recognized as particularly difficult to disclose. IPV survivors face obstacles to telling their stories that may hamper both personal recovery and collective momentum for systemic change.
Survivors of sexual violence have shared their stories with the public through social media in growing numbers. Recent research shows that sexual violence (versus other, less stigmatizing trauma) stories are perceived as more difficult to tell, and their storytellers less likeable. This is true even when stories have redemptive endings, contradicting an established U.S. cultural preference for redemptive stories. However, it is unknown if sexual violence perceptions generalize to different types of interpersonal violence (IPV) and if audience perceptions vary across 3 major types of IPV (sexual, physical, psychological). This pre-registered replication and extension study investigates these questions with a vignette-based experimental design modeled after 2 published studies by the first and last authors. Broadly, we hypothesized that cultural invalidation of sexual violence stories would extend to any IPV story (vs. non-IPV traumas such as natural disasters), and that within the realm of IPV, cultural invalidation would be more pronounced for psychological violence stories (vs. sexual/physical). Three samples of U.S. adult participants (N=1,045), 2 Nationally Representative and 1 University-based, were randomly assigned online to read 1 of 12 first-person trauma story vignettes and complete self-report surveys of story and storyteller perceptions in a 6 (trauma story: IPV [k=3], non-IPV [k=3]) x 2 (ending: negative, redemptive) between-subjects design. Support for our hypotheses was mixed. IPV (vs. non-IPV) stories were perceived as more difficult to share (η2p = .068) and their storytellers as having less positive personality traits (η2p = .043), even when stories ended redemptively. However, among the 3 IPV types, psychological violence storytellers were not robustly more stigmatized, and sexual violence stories were recognized as particularly difficult to disclose. IPV survivors face obstacles to telling their stories that may hamper both personal recovery and collective momentum for systemic change.
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