Improving Social Norms and Actions to Prevent Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence: A Pilot Study of the Impact of Green Dot Community on Youth

The Questionnaire of Intention to Help in VAW Cases (QIHVC): Development and preliminary results

Introduction

Violence against women (VAW) is a worldwide social and health problem of epidemic proportions. This violence is preventable, and bystander programs are one of the possible preventative strategies. The main purpose of this research was to develop a tool that, by applying a contrastive methodology for its application in different forms of violence (forms of gender-based violence, such as intimate partner VAW, sexual harassment at work, and street harassment, and common violence, such as a robbery), would allow measuring the probability of occurrence of bystander response in the face of these types of violence with good evidence of content validity.

Method

Firstly (Study 1), an initial version of a measure tool, the Questionnaire of Intention to Help in VAW Cases (QIHVC), was developed; secondly (Study 2), a Delphi (modified) study was carried out to obtain valid, content-based evidence; and finally (Study 3), a pilot study was carried out to evaluate the appropriate functioning of the QIHVC and, if required, to make any necessary adjustments.

Results and discussion

The main result is the development of a set of case scenarios and a questionnaire related to its content which constitutes the QIHVC and, in its initial approximation, seems to constitute an adequate and sensible tool to capture the differences between the characterizations of common violence and VAW and in the possible response of bystanders in the face of such violence.

Gender-based violence in Latin America (Ecuador and Argentina): current state and challenges in the development of psychoeducational materials

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a complex social and public health problem, which represents a human rights violation. Globally, GBV tends to occur in intimate partner relationships. Latin American countries report high rates of this violence. Despite their social and historical differences, Ecuador and Argentina are among Latin countries that aim to dismantle patriarchy. Developing psychoeducation materials is one way in which communities can recognize and prevent GBV. Psycholinguistics can provide useful tools to facilitate learning about this social issue: prior studies suggest that promoting the establishment of discourse connections, the generation of emotion inferences and the emotional involvement of the comprehender facilitate written and spoken discourse comprehension. The aim of this commentary article is to present an overview of the current incidence of GBV in Ecuador and Argentina, and to highlight the contributions that preliminary research on discourse comprehension can make to facilitate learning about GBV prevention strategies. Finally, we will discuss possible research guidelines and future directions. We expect that this manuscript will contribute to highlighting the importance of promoting social awareness of GBV and, therefore, the crucial role of the design and implementation of scientifically based interventions.

Youth perceptions of prevention norms and peer violence perpetration and victimization: A prospective analysis

The purpose of the current study is to prospectively examine the extent to which social norms perceptions regarding commitment to ending sexual violence are associated with subsequent peer victimization and perpetration experiences. Two types of social norms perceptions were examined: 1) peer norms (perceptions of norms among other students in their city), and 2) adult norms (perceptions of norms among adults in their city). Participants were 1259 middle and high school youth from a single school district (three high schools and five middle schools) who completed online surveys at two-time points, 6 months apart. Adolescents for whom perceptions of peer norms were one standard deviation or more above and below the mean of actual norms were "over-perceivers" and "under-perceivers," respectively. Overperceivers overestimated their peers' commitment to ending sexual violence, whereas underperceivers underestimated their peers' commitment to ending sexual violence. Other adolescents were "accurate perceivers"; these adolescents were accurate in their estimation of their peers' commitment to ending sexual violence. In general, underperceivers (22.2% of the sample) were more likely than accurate perceivers (77.8% of the sample) to subsequently experience peer-to-peer perpetration and victimization. Adolescents who perceived adults to have a higher commitment to ending sexual violence were less likely to report subsequent perpetration and victimization for some forms of peer-to-peer violence. These findings highlight the potential promise of the social norms approaches to prevent peer-to-peer violence among youth which aligns with increasing calls in the field to integrate these approaches into comprehensive sexual violence prevention.