College students' self-predicted reactions to witnessing sexual assault: the impact of gender, community, bystander experience, and relationship to the victim.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20000896

This dissertation presents findings related to how college-aged bystanders would react if they witnessed a sexual assault at a typical college party. Using a hypothetical sexual assault vignette, a college-student sample (n=299) was asked to predict their willingness to intervene directly, indirectly, or request external help on behalf of a victim. Using gender, community, social learning, and relationship theories as a framework, this study focuses on the role that gender, sense of community, past experiences in bystander situations, and the nature of the victim-bystander relationship play in bystanders' predicted willingness to intervene. Regression analysis confirms that women are more willing to intervene in indirect or external manners, and that sense of community is not significantly related to willingness to intervene. Also, bystanders are more willing to intervene directly if they have had previous positive experiences intervening as a bystander, and are more likely to intervene directly on behalf of the victim if she is a roommate than if she is a stranger.