Quantifying College Students' Bystander Behavior to Prevent Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence: Can We Make Improvements?

Sexual assault and intimate partner violence (IPV) are prevalent on college campuses, and bystander intervention programs are often employed as a method for preventing such violence. Unfortunately, there are concerns about current strategies for the measurement and quantification of bystander behavior. Accounting for the opportunity to engage in bystander behavior is theorized to be important, but it remains unclear if doing so improves the validity of the measurement of bystander behavior.

Party frequency, party-safety strategies, and sexual victimization among first-year female college students.

This study examined whether the use of party-safety strategies weakens the association between frequency of party attendance and sexual victimization among first-year female college students. First-year female college students ( = 450) from three universities in the United States participated in this study. Participants completed questionnaires on frequency of party attendance, use of party-safety strategies, and sexual victimization.

The Chivalrous Bystander: The Role of Gender-Based Beliefs and Empathy on Bystander Behavior and Perceived Barriers to Intervention.

Despite substantial evidence demonstrating a relation between gender-based beliefs and violence against women, there has been little research examining whether sexist attitudes are related to prosocial bystander behavior. Understanding psychosocial influences on bystanders' behavior could inform bystander training programs on college campuses, and so the current study examined the unique and joint effects of three gender-based attitudes (rape myth acceptance, hostile sexism, and benevolent sexism) and empathy in predicting bystander behavior and perceived barriers to intervention in situations that undergraduates ( = 500; 70% female; = 18.86 years) had experienced in the prior year.

Applying the dual factor model of mental health to understanding protective factors in adolescence.

Guided by the dual factor model of mental health and the resilience portfolio model, this study sought to identify protective factors that distinguish adolescents who exhibit different patterns of psychological symptoms and well-being. Participants were 466 twelve- to 17-year-old adolescents recruited from the Appalachian region of 3 Southern states who completed measures of psychological symptomatology, well-being and a range of protective factors. Analyses showed that, after accounting for adversity, the most consistent differences in both individual strengths and external resources were found between the groups who differed in well-being rather than those differing in symptoms.

Exploring action coils for bystander intervention: Modeling bystander consequences.

Individuals who take action to reduce sexual assault can experience a range of positive and negative consequences as a result of helping. This study examined how different types of consequences explain variation in confidence and intent to help. Nine hundred sixty-six individuals who reported intervening in a situation involving interpersonal violence; approximately half were recruited from university psychology courses and half through Amazon's Mechanical Turk.

Resilience in Children Exposed to Violence: A Meta-analysis of Protective Factors Across Ecological Contexts.

Children who experience violence in their families and communities are at increased risk for a wide range of psychological and behavioral difficulties, but some exhibit resilience, or adaptive functioning following adversity. Understanding what promotes resilience is critical for developing more effective prevention and intervention strategies. Over 100 studies have examined potential protective factors for children exposed to violence in the past 30 years, but there has been no quantitative review of this literature.

"We almost had the whole block's phone number on the wall": A mixed methods investigation of informal helping in a predominantly rural sample.

Community psychologists have noted the limitations of professional models of mental health treatment, demonstrating that people are more likely to use informal familial or community support during adversity. However, relatively little is known about the forms and functions of informal help seeking and provision. Semistructured interviews (N = 170), in which a sample of predominantly rural-dwelling adolescents and adults described significant life experiences, were coded for instances of receiving help.

The Bystander Behavior (For Friends) Scale: Factor Structure and Correlation With Prior Victimization.

The Bystander Behavior (for Friends) Scale (BBS) offers a promising method of studying prosocial bystander behavior in the context of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. The underlying structure of the BBS has only been studied in the development sample, which was predominantly White and from one university in the Northeast region of the United States. This single sample raises questions about the replicability and generalizability of the factor structure.

Caregiver behaviors associated with emotion regulation in high-risk preschoolers.

Children who witness violence are at risk for developing a range of developmental problems, including deficits in understanding and regulating. The ability to adaptively manage emotions is associated with children's mental health and their social and academic competence; however, little is known about how parents of at-risk youth can foster the healthy development of emotion regulation. The current study aimed to identify specific parenting practices associated with adaptive emotion regulation in at-risk preschoolers.

Adverse Consequences to Assisting Victims of Campus Violence: Initial Investigations Among College Students.

Despite growing interest in the use of bystander education programs to address the problems of sexual and relationship violence on college campuses, little knowledge exists on adverse consequences experienced by students intervening as a bystander. The current study examined the prevalence and correlates of adverse consequences of bystander intervention in two samples of first-year college students. In Study 1, 281 students completed a measure of negative consequences experienced when acting as a bystander to help someone at risk of sexual assault, relationship abuse, or stalking.

TakeCARE, a Video to Promote Bystander Behavior on College Campuses: Replication and Extension.

Previous research has demonstrated that college students who view TakeCARE, a video bystander program designed to encourage students to take action to prevent sexual and relationship violence (i.e., bystander behavior), display more bystander behavior relative to students who view a control video.

College Students' Perceptions of Barriers to Bystander Intervention.

Sexual violence is a major problem on college campuses and is associated with a range of negative health consequences for victims. Teaching students to intervene as prosocial bystanders has become a common element of sexual assault prevention efforts; although these programs have demonstrated positive effects on participants' beliefs and knowledge, their impact on actual behavior is weaker. Understanding the factors that inhibit intervening in risky situations may enhance the effectiveness of bystander programs by identifying material that addresses these barriers.

Triangulation and Parent-Adolescent Relationships: Implications for Adolescent Dating Competence and Abuse.

This study focuses on family predictors of conflict behavior in adolescent dating relationships, drawing on family systems and socialization perspectives. Mother-adolescent, father-adolescent, and triadic relationships each was examined as predictors of adolescent dating outcomes that hold importance for developmental and prevention science (positive conflict resolution, verbal abuse, and physical abuse). We conducted a longitudinal analysis using a 6-month longitudinal design with 236 ethnically diverse high school students.

Health effects of adverse childhood events: Identifying promising protective factors at the intersection of mental and physical well-being.

Research documents how exposure to adversity in childhood leads to negative health outcomes across the lifespan. Less is known about protective factors - aspects of the individual, family, and community that promote good health despite exposure to adversity. Guided by the Resilience Portfolio Model, this study examined protective factors associated with physical health in a sample of adolescents and adults exposed to high levels of adversity including child abuse.

TakeCARE, a Video Bystander Program to Help Prevent Sexual Violence on College Campuses: Results of Two Randomized, Controlled Trials.

Objective: The present research reports on two randomized controlled trials evaluating TakeCARE, a video bystander program designed to help prevent sexual violence on college campuses.

Method: In Study 1, students were recruited from psychology courses at two universities. In Study 2, first-year students were recruited from a required course at one university.

Predicting aggression in late adolescent romantic relationships: A short-term longitudinal study.

This study sought to prospectively predict aggression in the romantic relationships of 1180 college students from the United States (807 females; 373 males) over the course of two months with a set of intrapersonal risk and protective factors, including personality characteristics that rarely have been examined in this population. After accounting for prior dating aggression, perpetration of verbal aggression was predicted uniquely by aggressive attitudes, emotion regulation, and for females, narcissism. Perpetration of physical aggression was predicted by aggressive attitudes, but only at low levels of emotion regulation, and the interaction of callous-unemotional traits, emotion regulation, and gender: males with low levels of callous-unemotional traits perpetrated less physical aggression when they reported greater emotion regulation.

Not All Behind Closed Doors: Examining Bystander Involvement in Intimate Partner Violence.

It is often said that intimate partner violence (IPV) happens "behind closed doors"; however, research on IPV and other crimes suggests that witnesses are sometimes present. This suggests that bystanders may be in a position to help victims or potential victims of violence. Bystander behavior has been studied primarily in school settings, and consequently, little is known about how often it occurs or what its effects may be in the broader community.

A naturalistic study of narrative: Exploring the choice and impact of adversity versus other narrative topics.

Objective: Many narrative interventions require participants to write about trauma and adverse experiences, but some research suggests that open-ended topic prompts can also be effective. In this study, we investigated the topics participants chose to write about in a values-narrative program that offered wide discretion in topic and theme, and explored how that was associated with perceptions of investment and impact.

Method: Participants were 717 individuals (68% women) from the rural South, United States who had participated in a values-narrative program.

Maternal Attachment Buffers the Association Between Exposure to Violence and Youth Attitudes About Aggression.

The present study examined the relative and cumulative predictive power of parent-child, interparental, and community aggression on youths' perceptions of the acceptability of aggression between peers and siblings. The potential for mother-child attachment to buffer the effects of violence on aggressive attitudes was tested, as well as the link between aggressive attitudes and aggressive behaviors. A diverse sample of 148 children (ages 9-14) completed measures of interparental, parent-child, and community aggression; a measure of mother-child attachment quality; and a measure of aggressive behaviors.

Evidence-based interventions need to be more systematic, not more disruptive.

Comments on the original article, "Disruptive innovations for designing and diffusing evidence-based interventions," by M. J. Rotheram-Borus et al.

Parental Psychological Control and Autonomy Granting: Distinctions and Associations with Child and Family Functioning.

OBJECTIVE: This study utilized an observational coding scheme to identify parenting behavior reflecting psychological control and autonomy granting and examined relations between these parenting dimensions and indices of child and family functioning. DESIGN: A community sample of 90 preadolescents (aged 10.5 to 12 years) and both of their parents engaged in a triadic interaction that was coded for parental psychological control and autonomy granting.

Essential information about patterns of victimisation among children with disabilities.

Implications for practice and research: Children with disabilities are at increased risk for virtually every type of violence that has been measured in this population. Healthcare providers and researchers need to take a more comprehensive, person-centered approach that focuses on the vulnerability to polyvictimisation and the interconnection among forms of violence for children with disabilities.

Youth experiences of family violence and teen dating violence perpetration: cognitive and emotional mediators.

This article describes a conceptual model of cognitive and emotional processes proposed to mediate the relation between youth exposure to family violence and teen dating violence perpetration. Explicit beliefs about violence, internal knowledge structures, and executive functioning are hypothesized as cognitive mediators, and their potential influences upon one another are described. Theory and research on the role of emotions and emotional processes in the relation between youths' exposure to family violence and teen dating violence perpetration are also reviewed.

Interparental conflict in context: exploring relations between parenting processes and children's conflict appraisals.

Children's appraisals of conflict are a mechanism by which parental discord can lead to child maladjustment. The cognitive-contextual framework proposes that parent-child relationships may affect how children perceive conflict, but this idea has rarely been examined empirically. This study investigated relations between conflict appraisals, parenting, and child adjustment in a sample of 150 8- to 12-year-old children, using a multi-informant, multimethod design.

Emotional, cognitive, and family systems mediators of children's adjustment to interparental conflict.

Emotional, cognitive, and family systems processes have been identified as mediators of the association between interparental conflict and children's adjustment. However, little is known about how they function in relation to one another because they have not all been assessed in the same study. This investigation examined the relations among children's exposure to parental conflict, their appraisals of threat and blame, their emotional reaction, and triangulation into parental disagreements.