It’s Not My Place: Formative Evaluation Research to Design a Bystander Intervention Campaign

Abstract

Sexual misconduct remains a problem on college campuses despite years of documentation and research, and program development and implementation. The purpose of this study was to conduct systematic theory-based formative audience research to understand how college women and men make meaning of sexual assault and bystander intervention. A total of 69 men and women aged 18 to 24 years participated in eight gender-specific focus group discussions. A grounded theory approach was used to identify patterns and themes across the data. Themes emerging from the data included the following: (a) female participants' experiences of sexism and misogyny, (b) the myth that rape is falsely reported, (c) complex understandings of consent and entitlement, (d) the reluctance to stop someone from having a "good time," (e) the role of alcohol as a moderating factor in sexual misconduct and bystander intervention, and (f) preference for direct and impactful messaging. This study informs researchers and practitioners about college students' perceptions of, and experiences with, bystander intervention and sexual assault. Practitioners can use this information to develop effective mixed media, campus-wide social marketing campaigns.

Bystander reluctance in the aftermath of collegiate sexual misconduct

“…Furthermore, some participants believed that an incident did not occur at all, believing a common misperception on the frequency of false accusations (DeMaria et al, 2018; McMahon, 2010). Lisak et al (2010) reviewed all cases of sexual assault investigated by a single university police department over a 10 year period, alongside an extensive review of the relevant literature, and determined false accusation rates to be between 2% and 10%.…”

“…Finally, more awareness on the common manifestations of rape myths would better inform the community of their own beliefs. Many responses and reactions from participants can be classified as rape myths per the IRMA scale: a belief that the incident was not serious enough (subscale “It wasn’t really rape” and “Rape is a trivial event” ), excusing perpetrators who lacked intention (subscale “He didn’t mean to” ), and questioning a victim’s truthfulness (subscale “She lied” —see DeMaria et al (2018) for similar findings on rape myth prevalence). Likely many participants would have been surprised that their responses could be classified as examples of rape myths.…”

“…Analyses of collegiate bystander intervention programs find that they increase self-reported active bystander behaviors (Coker et al, 2011), increase bystander confidence (Alegría-Flores et al, 2017), decrease rape myth acceptance (Alegría-Flores et al, 2017; Coker et al, 2011), and reduce interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration rates (Coker et al, 2016); these effects can persist months after the program (Alegría-Flores et al, 2017; Banyard et al, 2007a). Despite these programs, barriers to successful preventative bystander intervention still exist on college campuses (Exner & Cummings, 2011), such as the “reluctance to stop someone from having a ‘good time’” (DeMaria et al, 2018).…”

“…The author used the transcripts of all interviews (108 single-spaced pages in total) to conduct line-by-line open coding and create a comprehensive set of initial concepts, which were then synthesized into a list of sub-themes using axial coding (“relating codes to each other using inductive thinking” from DeMaria et al, 2018). The first analysis of the data focused on the relational structures between the participant, victim, and perpetrator.…”

Guest Editor’s Introduction

“…Furthermore, it appears that bystanders are more willing to intervene in those cases where they consider the potential victim to be a member of their own social group, or where they know the victim and/or perpetrator (Bennett, Banyard, & Edwards, 2015; Katz, Pazienza, Olin, & Rich, 2014; Palmer, Nicksa, & McMahon, 2016), while men who do intervene sometimes have been found to encourage the perpetrator of the aggression (Graham et al, 2014). Some other moderators of bystander willingness to intervene include gender (see, e.g., Amar, Sutherland, & Laughon, 2014), victimization/perpetration history and history of misogyny (DeMaria et al, 2018), history of pornography use (Foubert & Bridges, 2017), and victim/perpetrator intoxication, as bystanders who witness conflict between intoxicated individuals are more likely to intervene than are those who witness conflict between sober individuals (Parks, Osgood, Felson, Wells, & Graham, 2013).…”