Abstract:At a moment when college sexual assault is described as an epidemic, it is important to understand college students’ implicit meanings of consent. Through 83 interviews, we examine students’ interpretations of a vignette in which neither character asked nor gave consent to sex. Gendered expectations significantly shaped whether students interpreted the male or female character as giving consent. When considering how students indicate interest in kissing or having sex, students interpreted acts such as leaving … Show more
“…Alongside feelings and communication, perceptions constitute one of the three core conceptualizations of sexual consent (Muehlenhard et al, 2016 ). Previous research has used vignettes to assess people’s consent perceptions; such studies typically presented a fictional sexual encounter to participants, who were then asked to retrospectively report their perceptions (Groggell et al, 2021 ; Humphreys, 2007 ). To our knowledge, only one study has used a staggered vignette protocol to assess sexual consent perceptions (Jozkowski, 2015 ).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A more recent study similarly used a vignette to depict a sexual encounter between two heterosexual characters that was purposely ambiguous regarding sexual consent (i.e., no explicit expressions of willingness were included in the vignette; Groggel et al, 2021 ). Participants in that study were more likely to perceive that the male character had give sexual consent compared with the female character.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Participants in that study were more likely to perceive that the male character had give sexual consent compared with the female character. When asked to provide evidence supporting their sexual consent perceptions, participants identified implicit cues, such as the characters transitioning together from a public to a private setting (Groggel et al, 2021 ). These vignette studies presented the entire vignette before participants assessed whether the characters were willing to engage in sexual activity.…”
Perceiving potential indicators of a person’s willingness is an integral component of sexual consent. Preliminary qualitative evidence using vignettes suggested that consent perceptions can change over the course of a sexual scenario. In the present study, we extended previous research by directly comparing momentary and retrospective sexual consent perceptions using a quantitative study design. Employing a staggered vignette protocol, we examined participants’ (n = 962; 72.0% female) momentary perceptions of fictional characters’ sexual consent and compared them with participants’ retrospective perceptions of the characters’ consent. We hypothesized that participants would demonstrate a hindsight bias in that they would retrospectively indicate they thought the fictional characters were first willing to engage in sexual behavior earlier than when they did momentarily. We found that differences in participants’ momentary versus retrospective perceptions of characters’ sexual consent varied by the type of behavior. As we expected, participants demonstrated a hindsight bias for making out. Contrary to our hypothesis, participants were hesitant to retrospectively report that the characters were willing to engage in the other sexual behaviors (e.g., oral, vaginal, anal sex) at a point earlier than their momentary perceptions. That momentary and retrospective sexual consent perceptions significantly differ corroborates previous recommendations that sexual consent be conceptualized as an ongoing process.
“…Alongside feelings and communication, perceptions constitute one of the three core conceptualizations of sexual consent (Muehlenhard et al, 2016 ). Previous research has used vignettes to assess people’s consent perceptions; such studies typically presented a fictional sexual encounter to participants, who were then asked to retrospectively report their perceptions (Groggell et al, 2021 ; Humphreys, 2007 ). To our knowledge, only one study has used a staggered vignette protocol to assess sexual consent perceptions (Jozkowski, 2015 ).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A more recent study similarly used a vignette to depict a sexual encounter between two heterosexual characters that was purposely ambiguous regarding sexual consent (i.e., no explicit expressions of willingness were included in the vignette; Groggel et al, 2021 ). Participants in that study were more likely to perceive that the male character had give sexual consent compared with the female character.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Participants in that study were more likely to perceive that the male character had give sexual consent compared with the female character. When asked to provide evidence supporting their sexual consent perceptions, participants identified implicit cues, such as the characters transitioning together from a public to a private setting (Groggel et al, 2021 ). These vignette studies presented the entire vignette before participants assessed whether the characters were willing to engage in sexual activity.…”
Perceiving potential indicators of a person’s willingness is an integral component of sexual consent. Preliminary qualitative evidence using vignettes suggested that consent perceptions can change over the course of a sexual scenario. In the present study, we extended previous research by directly comparing momentary and retrospective sexual consent perceptions using a quantitative study design. Employing a staggered vignette protocol, we examined participants’ (n = 962; 72.0% female) momentary perceptions of fictional characters’ sexual consent and compared them with participants’ retrospective perceptions of the characters’ consent. We hypothesized that participants would demonstrate a hindsight bias in that they would retrospectively indicate they thought the fictional characters were first willing to engage in sexual behavior earlier than when they did momentarily. We found that differences in participants’ momentary versus retrospective perceptions of characters’ sexual consent varied by the type of behavior. As we expected, participants demonstrated a hindsight bias for making out. Contrary to our hypothesis, participants were hesitant to retrospectively report that the characters were willing to engage in the other sexual behaviors (e.g., oral, vaginal, anal sex) at a point earlier than their momentary perceptions. That momentary and retrospective sexual consent perceptions significantly differ corroborates previous recommendations that sexual consent be conceptualized as an ongoing process.
“…Likewise, college students interpret and convey sexual interest through cues that occur in social settings. Cues occurring in social settings, such as meeting at a bar, engaging in flirtatious behavior, or leaving a public setting for a private space with another individual, suggest a person's interest in or consent to sexual behavior (Groggel, Burdick, and Barraza 2021; Jozkowski and Willis 2020; Orchowski et al 2022). Without these FtF social cues, the lack of facial expressions, body language, and shared co‐presence between actors can create interactional ambiguity when conveying romantic interest.…”
Digital technology has long provided new ways of initiating romantic relationships as people communicate through text messages, social media, and dating applications. Emojis have been widely adopted as a means of conveying nonverbal cues in digital communication. However, what role do platform‐provided social cues, such as emojis, play in fostering or impeding clear communication and shared romantic expectations from a flirtatious text message conversation? In this study, 713 college students were randomly assigned to read a Snapchat conversation with or without emojis and, they were subsequently asked to infer the characters' thoughts and feelings, clarity of the characters' intentions, and indicate their own discomfort with receiving a similar Snapchat message. The results showed that emojis increase the clarity of the main character's intentions. Moreover, the participants' cognitive efforts, the extent to which they were emotionally affected by the conversation, and the presence of emojis reduced comfort level with receiving a similar Snapchat message. These findings suggest that emojis provide clarity to romantic conversations, which can amplify the interpersonal discomfort of receiving text‐based sexual overtures.
“…Most of the available evidence using a qualitative approach has explored young adults' understanding of consent, which is a facet of sexual competence (Baldwin-White, 2021; Graf & Johnson, 2021;Groggel et al, 2021;Hills et al, 2021). However, qualitative evidence of young adults' broader understanding of sexual competence is still limited.…”
Introduction
Handling sexual interactions in a competent manner is a key skill for young adults, which is linked to positive aspects of sexual and general well-being. Several research conceptualizations of sexual competence have been proposed in the literature, but little is known about how young adults define sexual competence and what consequences they consider low sexual competence may have.
Methods
In this qualitative study conducted in 2019, 571 university students (365 women, 206 men) from Germany with a mean age of 22.6 years provided open-ended answers to two questions: (Q1) What do you consider to be sexual competence? (Q2) What consequences can low sexual competence have? Combining thematic analysis and qualitative content analysis, responses were coded into 264 categories that were then condensed into 30 latent themes, with 14 themes referring to Q1 and 16 themes referring to Q2. All categories showed strong inter-coder agreement.
Result
Participants defined sexual competence in a multi-faceted way and in partial overlap with research definitions. Gender differences emerged in four themes (needs/desires, communication, skills/abilities, and setting boundaries/limits). Participants’ statements about the consequences of low sexual competence corresponded closely with their definitions of sexual competence. Gender differences emerged in five themes (risk of sexual victimization and sexual aggression, problems in sexual communication, problematic [sexual] risk behavior, negative influence on [sexual] satisfaction, and lack of skills).
Conclusions and Policy Implications
The implications of the findings for research conceptualizations of sexual competence, for designing interventions to promote sexual competence, and for policy measures designed to reduce sexual aggression are discussed.
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