Experimental Approaches for Improving the Assessment of Partner Violence.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious and widespread problem. Unfortunately, like many other private behaviors, self-report is one of the few practical means of assessing IPV. Despite its known limitations, few studies have examined methods for improving the assessment of IPV through self-report, particularly in research contexts. The current study examined implicit goal priming (IGP) and restricted response latencies (RRL), which have previously been used successfully to improve reporting of other types of sensitive information. Participants in the IGP condition engaged in a word-matching task intended to subliminally prime an honesty goal immediately before completing the IPV self-report measure. In the RRL condition, the amount of time participants were allotted to answer each question was restricted to 3 s. Using a pilot sample of 71 cohabiting/married couples, we currently provide experimental support for the utility of the IGP task for increasing the frequency of reported IPV, as well as agreement between self-reports and partner reports, particularly when used in conjunction with the RRL method. We found the strongest and most consistent effects for women's reports of severe IPV perpetration and victimization, which is important given the extreme nature of these forms of IPV and because they are frequently underreported by women. We also found evidence to support the use of these methods to enhance reporting of other forms of IPV and provide additional directions for future research.

Situational and Dispositional Determinants of College Men's Perception of Women's Sexual Desire and Consent to Sex: A Factorial Vignette Analysis.

Sexual victimization of women by men on college campuses is a growing societal concern, with research identifying a host of situational and characterological factors that may predict men's likelihood to engage in sexual misconduct. In the present study, we examined the relative contribution and potential interplay of these various determinants on college men's perceptions of women's sexual desire and consent in hypothetical dating scenarios depicting a sexual interaction. We found that the men (N = 145) in this sample (a) conflated sexual desire with consent, (b) varied their appraisals of consent and desire depending on whether and how the woman in the vignette communicated consent or refusal, (c) perceived higher levels of consent if the man in the vignette had intercourse with the woman previously and as a function of escalating sexual intimacy in the ongoing interaction, (d) endorsed higher levels of perceived desire and consent across situations if they more strongly held rape-supportive attitudes, and (e) moderated their association between situational factors and perceptions of a woman's sexual intentions based on their endorsement of rape myths and a hypermasculine ideology. We conclude that efforts to prevent sexual violence among college students may benefit from being modeled on our findings that some men are likelier to infer consent regardless of the situation, that specific situational factors can foster misperceptions of consent across men in general, and that certain individuals in particular situations may pose the greatest risk for sexual misconduct.