The Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Perceptions of Consent and Refusal Indicators in a Fictional Alcohol-Involved Sexual Encounter

ABSTRACT

Alcohol intoxication may influence how bystanders interpret other people’s consent and refusal cues. We examined the effects of alcohol intoxication on participants’ perceptions of characters’ consent and refusal indicators in a fictional vignette depicting an alcohol-involved sexual encounter. Young adults (n = 119, 52% women) participated in an alcohol administration experiment examining the influence of acute intoxication on bystander perceptions during a vignette depicting a character who is intoxicated and declines a sexual advance from another character, who ignores her refusal and continues to pursue sexual activity. Participants were randomly assigned to an alcohol or non-alcohol condition and then guided through a semi-structured interview in which we asked about the characters’ consent and refusal cues. Interviews were analyzed using both inductive and deductive coding. Most participants eventually indicated the encounter was nonconsensual, but approximately 9% of participants described the encounter as entirely consensual and another 42% of participants described the interaction as initially consensual and then nonconsensual. Participants discussed nuanced accounts of consent and refusal cues, including indicators related to alcohol consumption. Disregarding intoxication and gender, participants eventually recognized the situation as nonconsensual and thus potentially risky. However, some participants recognized this risk earlier in the encounter than others. Consequently, bystanders who recognize risk later in a situation may have fewer opportunities to intervene before a situation escalates. We recommend sexual assault prevention educators take a more nuanced approach when discussing consent and refusal indicators, emphasizing contextual factors that may indicate risk.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Jeanette Norris for her invaluable insights during the design of this project and continued consultation during study implementation. We are also thankful for the contributions of the members of the Alcohol and Bystander Intervention Research Group who assisted in completing the project: Sarah Bilsky, Sasha Canan, Shelby Clark, Aubrey Dueweke, Megan Gardner, Ryan Grant, Debbie Gomez, Mary Hunt, Lauren Hurd, Kyle Jackson, Taylor Martinez, Madeleine Mee, Alita Mobley, C. Wade Morrison, Kelley Rhoads, Benjamin Smith, and Joshua Upshaw.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ During pilot testing, pilot participants predominantly indicated that the vignette was generally believable and realistic.

² Participants were asked the extent they believed the vignette was realistic and their likelihood of witnessing a similar encounter on a 1–10 scale with 1 being not at all realistic/not at all likely and 10 being extremely realistic/extremely likely. Notably, 88.9% of participants indicated a score of 7 or higher in rating the vignette as realistic and 55.9% of participants indicated 7 or above in terms of how likely they were to witness a similar encounter.

³ Participants reported additional consent and refusal indicators separate from the indicators intentionally included by the researchers when writing the vignette. We documented these additional indicators as part of our analysis process. However, overall endorsement of these additional indicators was low. The four additional consent indicators were: 1) participants inferring internal consent/wantedness (n = 5), 2) Pete and Vicki being physically close together (n = 8), 3) someone being sober during the encounter (n = 6) and 4) absence of coercion (n = 4). The four additional refusal cues included 1) Pete uses aggression (n = 12), 2) Pete leading Vicki away while she was intoxicated (n = 5), 3) the discrepancy in want between the two characters (n = 8) and 4) no affirmative consent was present (n = 5).

⁴ Although we included this cue a priori in the vignette to indicate the sexual behavior was not consensual, two participants cited it as a consent indicator.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [Award Number R21AA023230] (principal investigator: Lindsay S. Ham). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.