Adolescent Peers and Prevention: Network Patterns of Sexual Violence Attitudes and Bystander Actions

Abstract

Peer sexual violence is a significant social problem that affects adolescents and can lead to negative mental health and developmental consequences. Peers are a significant source of influence for adolescent behavior. For example, recent studies show training teens to be bystanders can be an effective prevention strategy to reduce peer violence and harassment. Peers can also promote risky behaviors including substance use and violence. The current study examined how sexual violence-specific risk and protective attitudes (e.g., denial of peer sexual violence and positive peer prevention norms) and behaviors (alcohol use and bystander actions to prevent peer sexual violence) clustered within peer networks cross-sectionally and over time. Participants were 1,499 7th−10th graders who took surveys during an academic year and who reported having opportunity to take action as bystanders to peer sexual violence. Participants took surveys 6 months apart online in schools. Questions included nomination of best friends to capture information about peer networks. Social network analyses indicated that there was weak but significant clustering of positive prevention attitudes such as bystander denial and marginal clustering on reactive bystander behaviors to address sexual assault. For comparison, alcohol use and academic grades were analyzed and found to also cluster in networks in these data. These findings suggest that for early adolescents, peer bystander training may be influential for some key bystander attitudes and reactive sexual violence prevention behaviors as individual behaviors are not independent of those of their friends.

Exposure to a youth-led sexual violence prevention program among adolescents: The impact of engagement.

“…A point was subtracted from the score if participants acted negatively (behaviors a and b) and added to the score if participants acted positively (behaviors c, d, e, and f). Thus, final scores for each situation ranged from −2 to 4 (Banyard et al, 2021). Analyses of these outcomes were performed on smaller subsamples of participants who indicated opportunity and thus findings may be less stable.…”

“…We used the work of Banyard and colleagues (Banyard et al, 2014) as a base as well as adaptations of this work for high school samples by Coker and colleagues (Coker et al, 2019), and validity was confirmed in other analyses using this data set (Banyard et al, 2021). We chose the specific bystander situations included by drawing upon recent work on high school students as bystanders to dating violence, sexual harassment and violence, and stalking (Edwards et al, 2017).…”

Ecosystemic and Situational Determinants in the Onset of Youth-Perpetrated Sexual Offending

“…Peers may also permit individuals to engage in inappropriate behavior as they may provide support for neutralizing beliefs, the perpetrator may blame others for their behavior, and/or they may not realize the cumulative effect of small offenses (Wortley, 2016). Prevention efforts in the context of this type of sexual offending should aim to engage peers in the push against sexually harmful behavior, enhance self-esteem and social skills, and develop peer resistance strategies (Banyard et al, 2021).…”

Effectiveness of a Bystander Intervention Program to Increase Bystander Behaviors Across Latent Risk Groups of High Schoolers

“…On the flip side, having peers who are supportive of bystander norms is related to use of bystander behaviors (Hoxmeier et al, 2018). In fact, Banyard et al (2021) found a positive association between an individual's and their peers' use of reactive bystander behaviors. Friend groups tend to have similar norms and behaviors (Mumford et al, 2017).…”