Predictors of Disclosure Recipients’ Social Reactions to Victims’ Disclosures of Dating and Sexual Violence: A Longitudinal Study of College Students

Abstract

Dating violence (DV) and sexual violence (SV) are pernicious issues among college students that lead to deleterious outcomes, which are more likely when victims receive more negative social reactions (e.g., blaming the victim) and fewer positive social reactions to disclosure (e.g., providing emotional support). Most research studies have examined victims’ reports of social reactions to their assault disclosures, with only a few cross-sectional studies of predictors of disclosure recipients’ provision of positive and negative social reactions to victims. The purpose of the current study was to address these gaps in the literature. Participants were 481 college students (76.4% women, 89.2% White/Non-Hispanic) who reported being a disclosure recipient during the past six months (measured at Time 2 to cross-sectionally and longitudinally predict their social reactions to victims’ disclosures). Results suggested that both victim and disclosure recipient characteristics (e.g., gender, race), disclosure recipient perceptions of victims (e.g., empathy for victim, blame of victim, victims’ coping) and both disclosure recipient and victim behavior at the time of disclosure (e.g., drinking, distress) were related to disclosure recipient social reactions. These findings underscore the need for programs for potential informal disclosure recipients that target psychological variables (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder) and behavior at the time of disclosure, as well as their perceptions of victims more generally, in addition to improving their knowledge and ability to respond with positive social reactions and avoid negative social reactions.

Latent Profiles of Social Reactions to Sexual Assault Disclosure Among Undergraduate Women

“…In the current study, however, most of the assault experiences occurred with an acquaintance or partner and disclosure to formal support sources was low, which may explain why we did not find a difference between the profiles of different social reactions in the perpetrator relationship/familiarity. Our findings are consistent with a more recent study with college students (Edwards, Ullman, et al, 2020) that also failed to find an association between general negative and positive reactions and victim-perpetrator closeness. Interestingly, this study found that perpetrator closeness related to fewer positive alcohol-specific reactions that victims received, which also suggests that it may be important to examine alcohol-specific reactions to disclosure in studies of college students.…”

“…The focus on cisgender, heterosexual women has been identified as a limitation of the wider social reactions literature (Dworkin et al, 2019), and the need to include racial and ethnic minority populations in trauma research has been recognized (Bryant-Davis, 2019). Survivors’ and disclosure recipients’ identities play a role in the types of social reactions that are provided (Edwards, Ullman, et al, 2020), reactions that are received (Sigurvinsdottir & Ullman, 2016; Ullman & Filipas, 2001a, 2001b), and the types of support sources disclosed (Starzynski et al, 2007; Ullman & Filipas, 2001b). Consideration of racial/ethnic and cultural identity may be particularly pertinent to research on the effects of social reactions to assault disclosure as some evidence suggests a stronger ethnic identity may be protective in the presence of negative reactions (Nikulina et al, 2019).…”

“…Assaults with greater severity may be related to both increased positive and negative social reactions to disclosure (Ullman et al, 2007, 2008); but victims of alcohol-involved assaults (Ullman & Filipas, 2001b) may receive greater negative reactions upon disclosure. Ullman et al (2006) found that victims of stranger assaults receive greater negative reactions, although more recently Edwards, Ullman, et al (2020) did not find a relation between closeness between victim and perpetrator and general negative or positive reactions. Assault characteristics are also related to mental health outcomes following sexual victimization (Ullman et al, 2006, 2007; Ullman & Najdowski, 2010).…”

Exploring the association between anticipated and actual responses to disclosures of intimate partner violence and sexual assault

“…Men’s anticipated ineffectiveness was generally lower than women, but their actual ineffectiveness was higher than women. Men tend have had less experience receiving disclosures (Edwards et al, 2020a), which may result in feeling less confident about their responses, whereas women may have had experience in this realm to draw upon when predicting their anticipated and actual ineffectiveness. Due to the high number of statistical moderation tests we conducted (e.g., these two interactions would not have been significant if using a p -value adjustment), and lack of an overall pattern, we interpret these results tentatively.…”

“…Cognitive responses may also differ according to gender, with women being more empathetic than men (Osmann, 2011; Verhofstadt et al, 2016). Women are also more likely to receive disclosures than men (Edwards et al, 2020a), and thus, may have more accurate views of how they will respond due to greater experience. Another potential moderator is previous victimization.…”