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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Emotional expression in the family as a context for children's appraisals of interparental conflict.

The cognitive contextual framework proposes that the emotional climate in the family plays a role in shaping how children perceive and evaluate interparental conflict. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of 144 8- to 12-year-old children and their parents. Children in families that expressed high levels of negative affect and low levels of positive affect reported greater self-blame for conflict, but parents' expressiveness did not predict children's threat appraisals.

Young children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Measurement and links with adjustment problems.

The present study investigated 2 questions pertinent to understanding developmental aspects of children's conflict appraisals: (a) Do 7- to 9-year-old children make reliable distinctions between their perceptions of conflict and their appraisals of threat and self-blame? (b) Do threat and blame appraisals mediate the association between exposure to interparental conflict and adjustment problems in this age group? Factor analysis of a new version of the Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale (CPIC-Y) designed for younger children showed that 179 7- to 9-year-old children distinguished properties of conflict from their appraisals of it. Moreover, as predicted by the cognitive-contextual framework, threat and self-blame appraisals mediated the link between conflict and internalizing problems but not externalizing problems. This study provides compelling evidence that appraisals of interparental conflict can be reliably measured at relatively young ages and suggests that perceptions of threat and self-blame function similarly in 7- to 9-year-olds as they do in older children.

Family processes that shape the impact of interparental conflict on adolescents.

This study draws on the family systems concepts of triangulation and wholism to investigate how interparental conflict may affect adolescents' psychological adjustment. An ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample (N = 388) of 14- to 18-year-olds completed measures of interparental conflict, family relationships, internalizing problems, and externalizing problems. We found that triangulation into parental disagreements mediated the association between parental conflict and both internalizing and externalizing problems.

Interparental conflict and adolescent dating relationships: integrating cognitive, emotional, and peer influences.

This study investigated the ways in which exposure to interparental conflict may affect adolescent dating relationships in a sample of 391 adolescents ages 14 to 18 years. Boys exposed to greater parental discord were more likely to view aggression as justifiable in a romantic relationship, had more difficulty managing anger, and believed that aggressive behavior was more common in their peers' dating relationships. Each of these variables in turn linked witnessing interparental conflict to higher levels of verbal and physical aggression toward their own romantic partners.

A prospective investigation of appraisals as mediators of the link between interparental conflict and child adjustment.

This longitudinal study tested the role of children's appraisals of threat and self-blame as mediators of the association between interparental conflict and child adjustment in a sample of 298 Welsh children ages 11 to 12 years. Exposure to higher levels of interparental conflict at Time 1 predicted greater perceived threat and self-blame at Time 2, after accounting for the effects of Time 1 adjustment and appraisals on later appraisals. Perceived threat in turn was associated with increased internalizing problems at Tune 2, and self-blame was associated with higher externalizing problems.

Interparental aggression and young children's representations of family relationships.

Children's maternal, self, and marital representations were examined in 46 children 3 1/2 to 7 years old using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery. Children drawn from agencies serving battered women expressed fewer positive representations of their mothers and themselves, were more likely to portray interparental conflict as escalating, and were more avoidant and less coherent in their narratives about family interactions than children from a nonviolent community sample. Interparental aggression uniquely predicted representations of conflict escalation and avoidance after accounting for parent-child aggression, and the two types of aggression had additive effects in predicting positive maternal representations.