Predicting the Effects of Sexual Assault Research Participation: Reactions, Perceived Insight, and Help-Seeking

Social Reactions to Disclosures of Multiple-Perpetrator Sexual Assault: Do Number of Offenders Matter?

Sexual assault (SA) victimization is a prevalent issue both in the U.S. and globally. Although SA victimization is usually perpetrated by a single-perpetrator, multiple-perpetrator sexual assaults (MPSAs) also occur. Unfortunately, there is less literature concerning MPSAs, including the well-being of survivors' post-assault. One factor that has been shown to be important in the well-being of SA survivors' post-assault are the social reactions survivors receive from others following disclosure. The current study sought to compare social reactions received by MPSA survivors to the social reactions received by single-perpetrator sexual assault (SPSA) survivors in a community sample of adult female SA survivors (N = 1,863). We examined "turning against" (TA) reactions, a type of negative social reaction in which the supporter expresses more overtly distressing reactions that focus blame on the victim. We also examined unsupportive acknowledgment reactions (UA) the second type of negative reaction in which survivors receive acknowledgment that the assault occurred but are not supported. Additionally, we examined differences in positive reactions that survivors received from their support systems. One-way Analysis of Variance showed statistically significant differences in social reactions to disclosure according to number of offenders in the SA, with MPSA survivors receiving more TA and UA negative reactions than SPSA survivors. There were no differences in positive reactions by number of offenders. Multiple regression analyses also revealed that several demographics, assault characteristics, and post-assault factors (total Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, coping, attributions of self-blame) were related to the social reactions received by MPSA survivors post-assault. Implications and recommendations for support providers are discussed.

Justice for Women After Sexual Assault: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis

Justice after sexual assault is often understood and enacted through the criminal legal system such that the outcomes are binary (i.e., justice is achieved or not achieved). Previous research indicates that survivors have specific wants and needs following an assault in order to experience justice, which may or may not align with current practices. We conducted a critical interpretive synthesis of 5 databases to create a sampling frame of 4,203 records; the final analysis included 81 articles, book chapters, and policy documents. Results indicate that justice is an individualized and dynamic process which may include the experience of voice, connectedness, participating in a process, accountability, and prevention. The experiences of safety and control are central to each of these domains. Survivors may seek and enact these justice domains through several avenues, including the criminal justice and legal systems, restorative justice, medical/mental health spaces, activism, art, and social media. Existing actors within currently available justice systems, including legal, medical, and mental health personnel should encourage survivors to identify and define their own experience of justice, including locating helpful behaviors rooted in safety and control, and resist a binary model of justice. Extant systems should therefore be flexible and accessible to help survivors realize their preferred modes of justice.

Research with women sexual assault survivors presenting for emergency care is safe: Results from a multi-site, prospective observational cohort study

A barrier to research with sexual assault survivors is the concern that research participation might be a negative experience for participants. We report the experiences with research of adult women sexual assault survivors participating in a large-scale, multi-site, prospective observational study that enrolled participants at the time of presentation for emergency care. Participants (n = 706, M = 28 years of age; 57% white, 15% Black) self-reported their experience with research 1 week, 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year post-assault. The vast majority rated the research experience as positive (95-97%), reported no drawbacks (84-89%), and felt that participating was worth it (93-95%). Positive experiences with research remained stable across the year, were generally consistent across demographic and clinical groups, and were reflected in qualitative comments. Given the tremendous morbidity experienced by sexual assault survivors and lack of progress in developing improved treatments for this population, ethically-conducted research with sexual assault survivors receiving emergency care should be encouraged.

Who posted #MeToo, why, and what happened: A mixed methods examination

Objectives

The #MeToo social media campaign raised awareness about sexual harassment. The purpose of the current study was to address three unexplored research questions. First, what factors influenced whether a person posted #MeToo? Second, how did posting (or not) influence participants' wellbeing? Finally, what motivated participants' posting (or not) #MeToo?

Method

This mixed-methods study explores how #MeToo was experienced by full-time employees (N = 395) who could have posted #MeToo (i.e., experienced a sexual harassment event), whether or not they did so. Participants completed surveys in July of 2018 assessing social media use, sexual harassment history, relational variables such as relative power and social support, and job and life satisfaction. Participants also responded to open-ended survey questions about the context of and decisions about #MeToo posting.

Results

Quantitative results indicated that sexual harassment history was the most powerful predictor of #MeToo posting, while power and interpersonal contact also contributed. Qualitative analyses (N = 74) using a grounded theory approach indicated themes associated with decisions to disclose, including feeling a responsibility to post, need for support, and affective benefits. Decisions not to disclose were event-related negative affect, posting-related negative affect, timing of the event, fit with the #MeToo movement, privacy concerns, and fear of consequences.

Conclusion

This study contributes to the literature on sexual harassment disclosure by focusing on informal means of disclosure and drawing on comparisons to formal reporting and implications for workplaces. Online sexual harassment disclosure, in many ways, reflects the impediments to formal reporting procedures. Given the increased use of social media for purposes of disclosure, these findings suggests that organizations should recognize the legitimacy of sexual harassment reports made online and consider the possible failings of their formal reporting systems as reasons for online disclosure.

#MeToo Online Disclosures: A Survivor-Informed Approach to Open Science Practices and Ethical Use of Social Media Data

With social media data widely available, researchers are increasingly incorporating tweets, posts, and blogs in their work. While easily accessible, the use of “public” posts raises important questions about the ethics of mining, storing, analyzing, and reporting publicly available social media data—especially when gathering sensitive information such as sexual violence disclosures. Online movements including #MeToo and #WhyIDidntReport emerged to shed light on gender-based violence. These movements generate large quantities of data with little consistency and oversight across research groups, disciplines, and review boards on data ethics. With the recent push in social science to publish data to open science databases, the concerns of feminist psychologists and ethical concerns of social media research with survivors have become more salient. In this article, we describe and address these ethical issues by reviewing existing social media sexual assault disclosure research and make concrete recommendations for authors seeking to use social media data. We also seek to address these ethical concerns by noting the work of some feminist researchers, but also by pushing researchers to do more for survivors through a survivor-informed approach to this research in an open science context. We propose four survivor-informed recommendations for research with this vulnerable population: (a) get input from survivors, (b) update ethics review boards, (c) maximize benefits to participants, and (d) utilize study-appropriate datasets with informed consent.

On Methods and Marshmallows: A Roadmap for Science That Is Openly Feminist and Radically Open

In this commentary, we argue that feminist science and open science can benefit from each other’s wisdom and critiques in service of creating systems that produce the highest quality science with the maximum potential for improving the lives of women. To do this, we offer a constructive analysis, focusing on common methods used in open science, including open materials and data, preregistration, and large sample sizes, and illuminate potential benefits and costs from a feminist science perspective. We also offer some solutions and deeper questions both for individual researchers and the feminist psychology and open science communities. By broadening our focus from a myopic prioritization of certain methodological and analytic approaches in open science, we hope to give a balanced perspective of science that emerges from each movement’s strengths and is openly feminist and radically open.

Alcohol's Role in Social Reactions to Sexual Assault Disclosures: A Qualitative Study of Informal Support Dyads

Studies of informal support dyads are lacking to understand the disclosure of sexual assaults and social reactions informal supporters make to survivors. This study of 19 informal support dyads using interview data examined how three relationship types-significant others (i.e., romantic partners), family, and friends-differ in social reactions to sexual assaults in the context of drinking or alcohol problems. It was expected that alcohol's role in responses to such disclosures would differ depending on relationship type as well as role alcohol played in the assault and/or in the survivor's life or those in her social network, including the perpetrator. Results show that alcohol has mixed effects and that alcohol-related assaults as well as contexts where survivors, perpetrators, and/or their support networks have alcohol problems need further study to understand how such disclosures and social reactions occur and the impact they have on survivors, their relationships, and recovery.

Navigating Sex and Sexuality After Sexual Assault: A Qualitative Study of Survivors and Informal Support Providers

Qualitative interview data from 45 matched pairs of survivors disclosing sexual assaults and their primary informal support providers (e.g., friend, family member, significant other) were used to explore survivor and support provider perspectives on changes in sexuality postassault and how those close to them have been affected as a result. Changes in sexuality included loss of interest in sex, increase or change in sexual partners, engaging in sex work, and increased sexual behavior. Support providers generally regarded promiscuity as a risky sexual behavior. If the support provider was the survivor's sexual partner, he or she discussed exercising caution when navigating sexual intimacy with the survivor. Not all sexual encounters with romantic partners were positive; some survivors discussed being triggered (i.e., with post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] flashbacks) or experiencing the dissolution of their relationships due to the sexual impacts of their assault. Counseling implications are discussed in the context of improving survivors' sexual experiences in general and in romantic relationships postassault. Implications can also be applied to prevention, scholarship on sex work, and sexuality research.

Japanese Students Do See the Value of Asking About Child Abuse and Trauma in the Research Setting

Despite evidence regarding the impact of childhood abuse perpetrated by close others, or high betrayal trauma, a number of barriers continue to impede research efforts, including concerns that research may do more harm than good. Research conducted with Western samples has indicated that contrary to such concerns, participants rate the benefit of participating in trauma research as outweighing costs, even when they have a history of high betrayal trauma. Certain non-Western values, such as interpersonal harmony, could play a role in perceptions regarding trauma research participation. The current study evaluated perceptions of 79 Japanese undergraduate students who participated in an online study of child abuse. Japanese students rated the importance of participating in trauma research as greater than any immediate distress it caused. Interpersonal harmony was not related to perceptions of participating in trauma research, nor was a history of high betrayal child trauma. Taken together, these findings support continued research on childhood abuse in non-Western samples.

Postassault Substance Use and Coping: A Qualitative Study of Sexual Assault Survivors and Informal Support Providers

This qualitative interview study examined 45 informal support dyads where a sexual assault was disclosed. Data from matched pairs of survivors and their primary informal support provider (e.g., friend, family, significant other), were used to explore the survivor-support provider (SP) perspectives of coping with assault-related distress via substance use and the effects of survivor substance use on the survivor-SP relationship. Results revealed that survivors' use of drinking and/or drugs to cope had both positive and negative effects on survivor-SP relationships. Findings also showed that SPs play various roles in providing support to survivors who cope via substance use, including engaging in substance use with the survivor and efforts to help get help in their recovery from the assault and substance abuse. Suggestions are made for how safe spaces can be provided where survivors and supporters can get information and treatment, whether formal or informal, that addresses sexual assault, PTSD and substance abuse issues in an integrated way.