Event-specific and individual factors impacting college students’ decisions to intervene in a potentially risky scenario

Abstract

Universities have attempted to address sexual violence on campuses through various prevention programs, including bystander intervention. Unfortunately, the extant literature on bystander intervention has primarily focused on bystander characteristics. Little is known about how situational characteristics affect the likelihood of intervening during sexual violence; yet, these variables have the potential to influence the effectiveness of bystander intervention programs. Using data collected from college students (N = 626) at a single university located in a large Southern metropolitan city, the present study utilizes a factorial survey design to investigate the impact of location, victim/offender sex, and perceptions of alcohol use on self-reported probability of intervention in an ambiguous sexual scenario. Results indicate that participants were more likely to intervene in scenarios that depicted a fraternity-hosted social (vs. on-campus) and less likely when there was a female perpetrator and a male victim. Perceived alcohol use did not impact intervention.

Keywords:

• Bystander intervention
• college students
• sexual violence
• vignette

Notes

1 Before collecting data, we performed a power analysis to determine a sufficient sample size. We used a mean effect size of −.23 for willingness to intervene, which we derived from findings presented in a meta-analysis evaluating the impact of victim/requester sex on prosocial helping behaviors in general.⁴⁵ Other values used to determine sample size were α = 0.05 and β = 0.20; thus, a required sample of 594 vignettes was determined. In our study, each person receives one vignette, which means that 594 individuals were needed. We were able to recruit a total of 626 participants.