Third-party intervention in high-risk situations in Africa: exploring factors influencing bystander intervention in sexual violence among college students

ABSTRACT

In recent times, bystander intervention has become an integral part of the effort to address the high prevalence rates of sexual violence on college campuses. Bystanders put their lives at risk by preventing high-risk situations from happening. Despite their critical role, bystander intervention has not been adequately examined to understand their decision-making process. The current study examined the behaviour of bystanders from an African perspective using college student data from Ghana and Ivory Coast. Specifically, the study examined the influence of sexual consent attitudes, personality traits, sense of community, and prior experiences of sexual violence on two dimensions of bystander intervention. The results revealed that lack of behavioural control, sexual consent norms, and a sense of community influence bystanders’ decision to intervene. Also, while personality traits failed to explain bystander behaviour, experience with sexual violence did. These findings offer important insights into developing effective sexual assault programmes on campus.

KEYWORDS:

• Bystander intervention
• Africa
• sexual violence; personality traits
• sexual consent

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Ark Foundation seeks to offer to vulnerable, marginalised, and abused persons, in particular women and children, compassionate care and to find strength, dignity and hope for life.

2. This implies that females/women are generally expected to dress and conduct themselves in ways that conform with culturally accepted standards of behaviour. However, men, are not held to this standard.

3. All scales were summative indices, created by summing up responses to or scores on all items that measured the same construct.

4. A sense of community is a psychological concept that was originally developed by McMillan and Chavis in their 1986 publication. According to the authors, the concept is defined as the ‘feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to being together’ (McMillan & Chavis, 1986, pg. 9). The concept encompasses four distinct elements, namely, membership, influence, reinforcement, and emotional connection.