The Impact of Individual and Context-Related Factors on Students' Reactions After Sexual Assault: A Vignette Study.

University students are often victims of sexual assault (SA) with a wide range of severity, but they are the least likely to disclose the assault or to take any concrete (legal) steps against the perpetrator. Prior work reported 13 main factors that influence university students' choice of reaction post-assault: (a) Fear of personal consequences, (b) distrust in authorities, (c) downplay of assault severity, (d) psychological factors, (e) situational factors, (f) lack of evidence, (g) emotional factors, (h) fear of interpersonal consequences, (i) social factors, (j) giving a benefit of doubt, (k) seeking justice, (l) needing support, and (m) presence of witnesses. In this experimental study, we included a student sample pre-screened not to have a history of SA ( = 419), and we provided them with a vignette.