ASSESSING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ JUDGEMENT OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY CONSENT SEEKING AND COERCIVE BEHAVIORS, AND ATTITUDE TOWARD ESTABLISHING SEXUAL CONSENT

Abstract

Sexual violence continues to be a serious public health problem, particularly among the college student population. This dissertation developed and implemented a web-based factorial vignette experiment to investigate vignette- and respondent-level factors that can explain undergraduate students’ evaluation of consent-seeking and verbal coercion in hypothetical vignette scenarios (N=420; Study 1). The vignettes embedded three factors with two levels each: level of intoxication (2 levels – sober/drunk), type of sexual relationship (2 levels – casual/committed), and, place of sexual encounter (2 levels – sexual initiator’s/partner’s residence). The respondent-level factors included gender identity, history of sexual victimization, attitude toward establishing consent, and endorsement of alcohol-involved consent scripts. Mixed models were used to assess the effects of vignette-level and respondent-level factors on students’ evaluations of consent-seeking and verbally coercive behaviors. The results showed significant differences in students’ evaluation of whether consent was sought based on level of intoxication, type of relationship, vignette scenarios, gender, consent attitude and endorsement of consent scripts. In addition, the study found significant differences in evaluations of coercive behaviors based on the vignette scenarios, consent attitude and acceptance of consent scripts. The dissertation also assessed the relationship between students’ endorsement of alcohol-involved sexual consent scripts and attitude toward establishing sexual consent, after accounting for covariates (Study 2). Hierarchical regression was used for this purpose. The study demonstrated that there is an inverse relationship between endorsement of consent scripts and consent attitude, after controlling for gender identity, relationship status, and campus athletic participation. There were also significant differences in consent attitude based on gender and relationship status. The findings from this dissertation emphasize the importance unpacking the elements of sexual consent definitions provided in many campus policies and understanding the cognitive and contextual factors that influence students’ interpretations of those elements. In addition, the findings support that there are broader issues such as acceptance of scripts that influence students’ consent attitudes. The implications include the need to target contextually relevant predictors of consent understanding and consent attitude in campus sexual violence prevention efforts.