Latent Profile Analysis of Alcohol Consumption and Sexual Attitudes Among College Women: Associations With Sexual Victimization Risk

Abstract

This study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify at-risk profiles of college freshman women ( n = 481) using self-reports of alcohol consumption and sociosexuality. Analyses resulted in three profiles labeled low alcohol use-low sociosexuality, high alcohol use-medium sociosexuality, and high alcohol use-high sociosexuality. Baseline victimization predicted latent profile membership. More severely victimized women were more likely to be in the high alcohol-high sociosexuality profile than the high alcohol-medium sociosexuality and low alcohol-low sociosexuality profiles. At follow-up, the high alcohol-high sociosexuality profile had higher mean levels of victimization severity, relative to those in the high alcohol-medium sociosexuality and low alcohol-low sociosexuality profiles.

Socio-Ecologically Constituted Types of Sexual Assault

“…These assault types were differentially associated with assault disclosure, and exploratory analyses suggested some preliminary differences by race and gender. These findings also contribute to work emphasizing the importance of understanding a combination of factors including alcohol and relationship to perpetrator (H. Littleton et al, 2009; Yeater et al, 2018) but also other socio-contextual factors (e.g., where the assault occurred, where the participant and perpetrator met, whether others were present before the assault)—dimensions that may have important implications for prevention.…”

“…The current findings add to a growing literature suggesting that sexual assault varies not only according to the acts that occurred and the tactics that were used but also according to relational and socio-contextual factors. We extended prior analyses of this kind with female survivors of sexual assault (e.g., Macy et al, 2007; Yeater et al, 2018) by focusing on sexual assault types within a population-representative sample of male, female, and gender-expansive undergraduate students. Using data from participants’ self-identified most significant incident, we found three distinct types of assault that were differentially constituted by incident-specific, relationship, and social context characteristics.…”

“…In one study that went beyond tactics, Macy and colleagues (2007) found four latent profiles in a sample of 415 college women with sexual assault experiences that were differentiated by individual-level factors such as prior victimization experiences, alcohol consumption, relationship expectancies of the perpetrator, and assertive precautionary habits. More recently, Yeater and colleagues (2018) found three latent profiles in a sample of 481 first year undergraduate women that were reliably distinguished by individual alcohol consumption and sociosexuality (i.e., the degree to which they were oriented towarsd and participated in uncommitted, casual sexual relationships in the absence of emotional closeness). However, the social and environmental context in which assault occurs has largely been absent from this work.…”

“…This study used data on the self-defined “most significant incident” of sexual assault experienced by a population-representative sample of undergraduates at two inter-connected institutions of higher education in an urban city in the Northeast United States. Based on prior work highlighting the importance of understanding relationship and substance use variables (Macy et al, 2007; Yeater et al, 2018), we predicted that distinct classes of sexual assault would emerge defined not just by the assault characteristics (e.g., acts that occurred such as sexualized touching or penetration and tactics used such as force, incapacitation, or coercion) of the self-defined most significant incident but also by a number of other factors key to prevention efforts including (a) relationship to assailant, (b) environment in which assault occurred, (c) where the assailant and participant met, (d) who was present prior to the assault, and (e) whether the participant or assailant had been using alcohol or drugs. Because this was an exploratory data-driven procedure and we included novel variables compared to prior research, we did not have specific hypotheses about the number or nature of the classes.…”

Factor Analysis of the Administrator-Research Campus Climate Collaborative (ARC3) Survey

“…Latent class analysis validated the ability for sexual assault items to be aggregated for school comparison (Krebs et al, 2016). While the survey was methodologically sound and was successful in highlighting problems associated with sexual assault in college campuses, neither did it sample graduate students nor did it include other relevant components of campus safety such as alcohol use (Caamano-Isorna et al, 2018;Mellins et al, 2017;Parks et al, 2014;White & Hingson, 2013;Yeater et al, 2018), peer norms (Bountress et al, 2017), consent (Fedina et al, 2018), and bystander intervention (Kettrey et al, 2019).…”