Research Reviews
Highlights from key research papers on the bystander approach.
Understanding the causal factors for rape builds the most effective prevention programs
Dear Engaged Bysander: I recently heard the keynote from the annual MASOC/MATSA conference and was moved by the research Ray Knight presented. I know that sounds odd to be “moved” by research, but I was. It was a fabulous presentation and what I loved about it was that he challenged us to base our prevention programs on research evidence – more than just good ideas.
Knight argued that all prevention programs need to be focused on the causal factors of rape and not the correlates. What does that mean in plain English? If we want to be successful at stopping any social problem or disease we need to look at the factors that CAUSE that problem. As an example, he showed a great cartoon of a caveman with tons of children saying “How do we prevent pregnancy when we don’t even know the cause of it?”
He then presented a model which offers a separation of the causal risk factors and the correlates to these factors. He suggests that prevention programs which focus on these causal risk factors will be more successful in the long run. The causal risk factors in his study included:
· Hypersexuality
· Callous/Unemotional
· Antisocial behavior
The correlates that he specifically studied included:
· Alcohol use
· Distorted perceptions
· Rape attitudes
· Pornography use
As he went into more detail, he offered compelling arguments that we as professionals need to read ALL of the literature. In this case there are often very distinct realms that rarely share knowledge – those who work with sex offenders and those who work on college campuses. He also demonstrated that the risk factors for adult rapists are not completely aligned with the risk factors for child molesters. In particular, this showed up in rape attitudes and distorted perceptions. So we need to be sure that we don’t use the same programs with college students as we may use in a program for children and youth.
Finally, he talked about the impact of the environment on the individual – the environment and particularly toxic stress can affect the brain and even affect the genes of a child or adolescent. The “can” means that there are some individuals who are more vulnerable to the stress in their environment. So from a primary prevention point of view, addressing these stressors can also affect the ability of an individual to live safely (regardless of their proclivity to offend).
So what are the implications for all of this? Certainly we need more research on this topic. But in the meantime, our bystander programs need to be sure to address the causal risk factors for rape IF we truly want to be successful. Understanding the impact of correlates is essential, but if we only target these correlates, we will not be able to get to the root of the problem.
I would strongly suggest that you take a closer look at the article by Knight, Knight and Brown-McBride OR take the time to listen to this keynote. Both a podcast and the powerpoint from his keynote at the annual MASOC/MATSA conference is available on the MASOC website.
Let me know what you think!
Warmly
Joan
Excellent Overview of the Bystander Research on College Campuses
Dear Engaged Bystander: I was hooked on this new journal article because they created their program, Engaging Bystander Approach (ERB) with the understanding that it was essential to add the word “engaging” because the term bystander, alone may conjure a passive or negative image of men and women who witness a problem and do nothing.
“Conceptualizing the Engaging Bystander Approach to Sexual Violence Prevention on Campus” by Sarah McMahon, Judy L Postmus and Ruth Anne Koenick provides an excellent overview to the bystander research and offers some new insights for those intrigued with the potential of this approach. The authors point out that the idea of bystander behavior is well established in the field of social psychology (e.g., examining individual reactions to crime and emergencies), but the application to sexual violence prevention is fairly recent. The authors propose that understanding the Continuum of Violence is key to developing an effective bystander intervention approach. For the authors, one end of the continuum are sexually violence behaviors and the other end are behaviors that contribute to the existence of sexual violence (e.g., sexually degrading language).
Through CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) funding, the authors conducted an exploratory study with 1000 undergraduates attending a new student orientation. Here is a short list of their findings and their call for further research:
Confronting overt signs is easier to consider saying something. Incoming freshman are better able to conceptualize an intervention when they are faced with the more overt forms of sexual violence. They suggest that a student is more likely to confront a friend taking a drunk person back to his/her room rather than confront a friend or family member who uses sexist language.
Gender. They found that women had higher level bystander attitudes and behaviors. The authors suggest that further research is needed to see to adjust the context and the skills training by gender.
Knowing someone who was sexually abused. Understanding the impact of sexual abuse through a friend or family was a significant factor in more positive bystander behaviors but surprisingly not necessarily linked to any change in attitudes.
Previous rape education. Previous rape education did not produce an significant differences in bystander attitudes or behaviors.
High risk groups. The at risk groups such as fraternities and athletic teams have less positive bystander attitudes then their counterparts. The author suggests that these tight knit communities value loyalty and even secrecy and may serve as a barrier to engaging them as bystanders.
For more information about this article, here is the full citation:
McMahon, J., Postmus, Judy L., and Ruth Anne Koernick. (2011) Conceptualizing the Engaging Bystander Approach to Sexual Violence Prevention on College Campuses. Journal of College Student Development. Vol 52, NO 1.
What happened at your thanksgiving table this year?
Dear Engaged Bystander: What happened at your thanksgiving table this year? This year, our family gathering was the usual warm chaos, MUCH smaller (14 instead of 24), and lots of attention on the first great grandchild of this next generation.
And this year, my niece brought home a project from her graduate program – we were to take our favorite family photographs and re-enact them. I will spare you the details, but it did bring back some wonderful memories of past years and the people we have lost in our family over the years. After everyone had left, I had the chance to talk with my mother about what life was like for her with two kids in the 1950’s. She shared this most amazing story of another time…
My older brother was born in Chicago and when my mother went food shopping she would put him in the baby buggy and take him with her. He usually fell asleep along the way and she would park the buggy outside the store, in a single line alongside all of the other baby buggies as she went into shop. If a mother came out and heard a baby crying, she would quiet that baby and wait for the mother to come out. It was the entire village raising each child. But can you imagine this in 2010? As a parent, I would never do that, even in this wonderful small town where I have raised two children. Today, it would be considered child neglect, but in 1953, this is how every mother raised her child.
I heard this story just after reading a recent study commissioned by an English nonprofit called, Play England. The study found that 44 percent of men and 38 percent of women said they would be wary of even helping a child in their neighborhood in case they were suspected of attempting to abduct the child. Thirty-eight percent of parents (with children 0-5) thought it was “common” for children to be abducted by strangers while playing outside. These are the fears that are weakening our community spirit and leave our children increasingly isolated and more likely to play alone, indoors, without the benefit of multiple healthy relationships.
Play England sees playtime as essential for a healthy childhood. Yet the organization has found that while 90 percent of adults played regularly on the street as children, only 30 percent of today’s children (age 7-14) get that same chance.
The impact of our growing awareness linked to fear is clear. Given my mother’s story and the image of those baby buggies outside of the supermarket, we clearly need to begin to offer hope and practical advice for connecting safely with other parents, children and families. While I am thankful for the awareness we have built over the years, I also hope that we can begin to advocate for practical ways to connect with other families and not be so afraid to help any child in need.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Joan
Asking about pregnancy coercion and intimate-partner violence
Dear Engaged Bystander: When I read a study that says by "asking about pregnancy coercion and intimate-partner violence can reduce their incidence" I have to sit up and take notice. Below is a brief overview of this recently released study.
Study finds asking about pregnancy coercion and intimate-partner violence can reduce their incidence
Jay Silverman and Heather McCauley of the Harvard School of Public Health, Rebecca Levenson of the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Michele R. Decker of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Daniel Tancredi of UC Davis.
There are a growing number of professionals who insist upon an evidence-based approach to any new program innovation. I am so encouraged by this trend, but also discouraged by the relatively few studies that clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of a specific intervention. Without these studies, we are flying blind about what works and what doesn’t work.
Background
This pilot study conducted by UC Davis School of Medicine found that when clinicians specifically asked young women during visits to family planning clinics whether their partners had attempted to force them to become pregnant, it dramatically reduced the likelihood that the women would continue to experience such pressures.
The questions were fairly simple and straightforward yet they can have a profound impact on a young women’s life. They asked a series of questions (see below) and offered simple educational information.
- "Have you hidden birth control from your partner so he wouldn't get you pregnant?"
- "Has your partner tried to force you to become pregnant when you didn't want to be?"
- "Does your partner mess with your birth control?"
- "Does your partner refuse to use condoms when you ask?"
- "Has your partner ever hurt you physically because you didn't agree to become pregnant?"
Results
“Young women who recently experienced partner violence had a 70 percent reduction in the odds that they would continue to experience pregnancy coercion following the questioning, which is called a brief intervention, the study found. The study participants also were 60 percent more likely to report ending a relationship with a partner because they felt unsafe or the relationship felt unhealthy.”
Implications
This study shows that a relatively small investment of time, we can have an enormous impact on the lives of women living in violent situations. In this pilot study, the researchers found that by opening up a difficult subject and taking out the shame of domestic violence, by asking simple questions by someone in a position of responsibility, and by supplying simple educational materials, women are able to change their exposure to violence. For bystander programs, this study points to the importance of simply asking questions. When people ask what they can do, this study could validate the importance of just learning to ask questions about what is happening in a non-judgmental way and within a confidential setting.
One of the authors, Rebecca Levenson, of the Family Violence Prevention Fund, eloquently described the potential impact of these findings, “This study is extremely important because it identifies an effective solution that can be implemented relatively easily. We need to build on these results by making this intervention the norm in health-care settings throughout the nation as quickly as possible."
Click here for a link to the press release for the study.
Research Paper Review: Reducing Sexual Violence on Campus: The Role of Student Leaders as Empowered Bystanders
Dear Engaged Bystander: If you are like me, you have a stack of research papers you have been meaning to read all summer. I wanted to create a short series of my favorite research articles to share with you and I hope to keep them all to under 500 words.
So this is the first in a series of reviews of key research. I hope you find them helpful.
This article by Banyard, Moynihan and Crossman provides an excellent overview of the problem of sexual violence in college communities and important insights into future directors for prevention programming within this institutional setting. The study itself examines one bystander program that targets student leaders as key to shifting awareness and social norms around sexual violence in a campus environment.
Background
College campuses are often considered high risk environments for sexual and physical violence because of the high concentration of the most at-risk age group (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2004). With this high concentration of high risk individual and with the unique capacity of these institutions to reach a large number of young people with healthy messaging, one might assume that every college and university has a program to address this growing problem. Unfortunately, a recent report by Karjane et al. (2005) showed that fewer than half of the colleges and universities surveyed by their study offered training related to sexual assault and only 60% offered any kind of educational prevention program.
Using the wider ecological context of peer and community norms, the authors point to previous research which shows that communities have higher rates of sexual violence when community and peer norms support individual coercive behavior in relationships. This is the foundation for positive change which suggests that bystanders, by their presence and actions may be able to help deter the perpetration of sexual violence or in some way help to protect a potential victim.
Study Results
The bystander program targeted student leaders teaching them to be engaged, positive bystanders by raising awareness about sexual violence and building skills to respond and prevent it. The model for this evaluation was a 90 minute session (although not a part of the evaluation, the program also has a longer multi-session component). A key component of the training was the opportunity to plan how to intervene and to practice the skills for acting as an empowered bystander -- this interactive training went far beyond a lecture format.
The evaluation found that after going through the program, participants (both men and women) endorsed fewer rape myths, expressed greater willingness to help as a bystander and more confident enacting positive bystander behaviors, and last, more strongly agreed with statements reflecting greater bystander engagement. One participant remarked, “The information about just doing something is so simple but it really hit home this time…” In fact, the study reflected that the bystander program was equally effective among students who began with a higher level of general awareness and training.
Implications
According to David Finkelhor’s four precondition model for perpetration (1984), one of the key preconditions to sexual violence is the ability to overcome external inhibitions to abuse. When students enter the campus environment, they are leaving behind many of the external social controls (external inhibitions) that surrounded them for the previous 18 years. At the same time, they are encouraged to explore, to experiment and to stretch beyond what they had thought possible in their home towns. The bystander framework offers colleges and universities a chance to build social norms to establish safe relationships and give a powerful role to students in creating peer “external inhibitions to abuse.”
This evaluation study demonstrated how student leaders can be easily engaged in a more active bystander role in their communities. With a relatively small investment of time, these leaders have the potential for becoming role models and endorser of the important bystander role that students can play. As student leaders, they have the ability to spread this attitude (and these skills) across their spheres of influence.
