Does Question Format Matter in Assessing the Prevalence of Sexual Aggression? A Methodological Study

Abstract

As research on sexual aggression has been growing, methodological issues in assessing prevalence rates have received increased attention. Building on work by Abbey and colleagues about effects of question format, participants in this study (1,253; 621 female; 632 male) were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S). In Version 1, the coercive tactic (use/ threat of physical force, exploitation of the inability to resist, verbal pressure) was presented first, and sexual acts (sexual touch, attempted and completed sexual intercourse, other sexual acts) were presented as subsequent questions. In Version 2, sexual acts were presented first, and coercive tactics as subsequent questions. No version effects emerged for overall perpetration rates reported by men and women. The overall victimization rate across all items was significantly higher in the tactic-first than in the sexual-act-first conditions for women, but not for men. Classifying participants by their most severe experience of sexual victimization showed that fewer women were in the nonvictim category and more men were in the nonconsensual sexual contact category when the coercive tactic was presented first. Sexual experience background did not moderate the findings. The implications for the measurement of self-reported sexual aggression victimization and perpetration are discussed.

Pathways from College Students’ Cognitive Scripts for Consensual Sex to Sexual Victimization: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

“…At T2 and T3, they were asked to complete the items for the preceding 12 months. The reliability and validity of the SAV-S have been demonstrated in previous research (Krahé et al, 2016;Schuster et al, 2021). A copy of the measure can be obtained from the first author.…”

Order Effects of Presenting Coercive Tactics on Young Adults’ Reports of Sexual Victimization

“…Are the proposed effects of the order manipulation the same for different levels of severity? Based on past research by Abbey et al (2005) and Schuster et al (2021), we expected order effects to be more likely on items referring to less severe forms of sexual victimization (the use of verbal pressure vs. the use or threat of physical force or unwanted touch vs. completed sexual intercourse), which may be less salient, leave more room for interpretation, and therefore more likely to be affected by the context of other items (Hypothesis 2). 3.…”

Links of Perceived Pornography Realism with Sexual Aggression via Sexual Scripts, Sexual Behavior, and Acceptance of Sexual Coercion: A Study with German University Students

“…The format of the SES is illustrated in the Appendix A . The SAV-S was validated in several studies in different countries [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 ]. As with the script measure, item wordings were matched to participants’ sexual experience background: Women with exclusively heterosexual experiences and men with exclusively same-sex experiences received the version referring to a male partner, men with exclusively heterosexual experiences and women with exclusively same-sex experiences received the version referring to a female partner, participants with both heterosexual and same-sex experiences received a gender-neutral version referring to “a person”.…”

“…To arrive at a measure of sexual aggression victimization, we first categorized participants into nonvictims (“no” responses to all victimization items) and victims (“yes” response to at least one victimization item). To take differences in the severity of the victimization experience into account, an additional five-level score was created in which each participant was classified in terms of the most serious reported experience of victimization, following a procedure used in previous research with the SAV-S (e.g., [ 59 , 63 ]) and an analogous approach used for the Sexual Experiences Survey [ 60 , 65 ]. The categories were defined as follows: (0) No victimization (“no” responses to all SAV-S items); (1) Sexual contact without penetration (i.e., sexual touch) or other sexual acts, but no sexual coercion, attempted rape, and rape; (2) Sexual coercion , i.e., attempted or completed vaginal or anal penetration or other sexual acts using verbal pressure, but no attempted or completed rape; (3) Attempted rape , i.e., attempted vaginal, or anal penetration through exploitation of the victim’s inability to resist or threat or use of physical force, but no completed rape; and (4) Completed rape , i.e., completed vaginal or anal penetration through exploitation of the victim’s inability to resist or threat or use of physical force.…”