Affirmative Consent on campus: student understanding, perceptions of effectiveness, and behavioral change

ABSTRACT

Affirmative Consent (AC) policies have become a popular way for universities across the US to address the issue of sexual assault on campus. This study utilizes a sample of over 1400 university students to address student self-identified understanding of AC, perceptions of AC policy effectiveness at decreasing sexual assaults on campus, and self-reported behavior change. Results show that about 80% of the sample reported understanding AC, a slight majority of the sample (53%) believed AC policies were effective, and only 20.5% of respondents reported changing their own behavior as a result of AC policies. Exposure to AC through professors or administrators increased AC understanding and perceptions of effectiveness. Knowing others who changed their own behavior was significantly related to understanding of AC, perceived effectiveness of AC, and personal self-reported behavior change. Additionally, issue salience as measured through self-reported concern about sexual assault on campus and self-reported fear of sexual assault on campus was related to perceived effectiveness and self-reported behavior change. Multivariate analyses explored these issues further and raise questions of the ability of these policies alone to combat sexual assault on campus.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual assault
• Affirmative Consent
• campus
• policy

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Concern, SafeCampus, NoSexAssaultProblem, and ReportsNotTrue all measure the idea of issue salience for the respondent. Correlations were conducted on these four variables to check for multicollinearity. The highest correlation was .403, which was below the accepted threshold for multicollinearity, and as such all four variables were included independently in the analyses. Collinearity for all independent variables was checked with no issues of multicollinearity present.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tasha Youstin

Tasha Youstin, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Western Carolina University. Her research focuses on a variety of topics, with current interests including victimization, sexual assault, mental health issues within the criminal justice system, and policing. Her work has appeared in Criminal Justice & Behavior, Crime & Delinquency, and Justice Quarterly, among others.