Violence against women students is increasingly recognized as a significant public health and human rights issue. The Intervention Initiative is a facilitated bystander intervention educational program commissioned by Public Health England for use by all English universities to prevent violence, abuse, and coercion. The success of the program with first-year law students at a large university in the South West of England was evaluated through course evaluation feedback and in a questionnaire study. Student experience was exceptionally good across all measures. In paired sample t tests, prosocial bystander behavior did not increase significantly from pretest to post-test immediately after taking part in the program. Rape myth acceptance, domestic abuse myth acceptance, and denial decreased significantly (p < .001; d > .599). Bystander efficacy, readiness to help, and responsibility increased significantly (p < .001; d = .408–.703), and intent to help increased significantly (p = .007, d = .248). Exposure to a concurrent social marketing campaign on campus had a significant strengthening effect on improvement of attitudes to rape myths (p = .010) but not any other outcome measures. No significant backlash was identified.

Objective: In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the prevalence of sexual violence in U.K. university student populations, yet prevention efforts are in their infancy. Evidence from the United States shows that empowering bystanders to intervene to prevent violence rather than focusing on perpetrators or victims is a promising strategy particularly suited to university settings. Public Health England commissioned a bystander program, The Intervention Initiative, for U.K. universities. This paper discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the bystander approach and the challenges for practical implementation in Europe. Method: We review findings from research relating to bystander theories, social norms theory, and effective prevention programming that inform the development of maximally effective bystander programs. Results: Bystander programs are complex, multifaceted interventions based on taking participants through the different stages required for an individual to move from inaction to action as described by Latané and Darley, 1969, 1970 in their organizing framework for bystander intervention and incorporating a social norms element. Programs that adhere to the principles for effective prevention as set out by Nation et al. (2003) are most likely to be effective. We demonstrate how these criteria informed the cultural specificity of The Intervention Initiative to U.K. university settings and the challenges in adapting the approach for European settings. Conclusion: More research is needed to develop and test bystander programs in different European countries to build an evidence base for effective prevention programming.

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A considerable body of sensory research has addressed the rules governing simultaneity judgments (SJs) and temporal order judgments (TOJs). In principle, neural events that register stimulus-arrival-time differences at an early sensory stage could set the limit on SJs and TOJs alike. Alternatively, distinct limits on SJs and TOJs could arise from task-specific neural events occurring after the stimulus-driven stage. To distinguish between these possibilities, we developed a novel reaction-time (RT) measure and tested it in a perceptual-learning procedure. The stimuli comprised dual-stream Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) displays. Participants judged either the simultaneity or temporal order of red-letter and black-number targets presented in opposite lateral hemifield streams of black-letter distractors. Despite identical visual stimulation across-tasks, the SJ and TOJ tasks generated distinct RT patterns. SJs exhibited significantly faster RTs to synchronized targets than to subtly asynchronized targets; TOJs exhibited the opposite RT pattern. These task-specific RT patterns cannot be attributed to the early, stimulus-driven stage and instead match what one would predict if the limits on SJs and TOJs arose from task-specific decision spaces. That is, synchronized targets generate strong evidence for simultaneity, which hastens SJ RTs. By contrast, synchronized targets provide no information about temporal order, which slows TOJ RTs. Subtly asynchronizing the targets reverses this information pattern, and the corresponding RT patterns. In addition to investigating RT patterns, we also investigated training-transfer between the tasks. Training to improve SJ precision failed to improve TOJ precision, and vice versa, despite identical visual stimulation across tasks. This, too, argues against early, stimulus-driven limits on SJs and TOJs. Taken together, the present study offers novel evidence that distinct rules set the limits on SJs and TOJs.

This chapter examines the theoretical underpinnings, development and implementation of The Intervention Initiative (TII), a public health intervention toolkit developed at the University of the West of England for use by all universities in the prevention of sexual and domestic violence (SDV). TII is an evidence-based programme predicated on bystander theories, social norms theory, the criteria for effective prevention programming, and the transtheoretical model of behaviour change (TTM). The chapter first considers intermediate outcome measures (for example, sexist attitudes, denial of violence as a problem, knowledge about violence) that can be used to evaluate bystander programmes for university settings. It then discusses the evidence base and the theoretical rationale for TII to demonstrate how it takes participants through each stage of change required for bystanders to intervene. It also offers policy recommendations for further implementation of the programme in the context of current agendas for the university sector.