The effectiveness of the Bringing in the Bystander™ program among first-year students at a religiously-affiliated liberal arts college

Abstract

To address sexual assault, many universities are implementing Bringing in the Bystander™ (BitB) training, a prevention program that aims to improve participants’ bystander self-efficacy and reduce rape myth acceptance. Although growing evidence supports the efficacy of BitB, data primarily have been amassed at one large public university, the University of New Hampshire, limiting the generalizability of intervention effectiveness. To address this gap, we made modifications to training structure and assessed BitB effectiveness among first-year students at a private Jesuit Catholic liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Using a within-subjects pre-/post-test survey design, we found that students’ (N = 164) bystander self-efficacy significantly increased and rape myth acceptance significantly decreased following training. Results indicate that BitB implementation is feasible and effective on a new campus despite modest modifications to training delivery and despite differences in religious affiliation, median income, and class size between the two campuses.

A Popular Approach, but Do They Work? A Systematic Review of Social Marketing Campaigns to Prevent Sexual Violence on College Campuses

“…Existing research examining non campaign-based prevention programming has also found evidence of differential program impacts based on various individual characteristics (e.g., gender [Inman et al, 2018; Moynihan & Banyard, 2008]; year of study [Kettrey & Marx, 2019]). As these types of variables were examined in a limited capacity within the included sample of studies, future evaluative research of sexual violence prevention campaigns should consider examining individual characteristics more closely.…”

Rethinking the Bystander Effect in Violence Reduction Training Programs

“…Bringing in the Bystander (Banyard et al., ; Banyard, Moynihan, & Crossman, ; Inman, Chaudoir, Galvinhill, & Sheehy, ; Moynihan & Banyard, ; Moynihan, Banyard, Arnold, Eckstein, & Stapleton, ) is a multicomponent violence reduction curriculum that combines two psychological models: the transtheoretical model of change (Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, ) and the community readiness model (Edwards, Jumper‐Thurman, Plested, Oettin, & Swanso, ). The program utilizes the idea of achieving greater helping behavior through a greater sense of community (Banyard, ).…”

“…The Bringing in the Bystander program has also been subject to several evaluations (Banyard et al., ; Inman et al., ; Moynihan et al., , ; Senn & Forrest, ). These evaluations tend to find decreases in rape myth acceptance and increases in self‐reported feelings of efficacy, willingness to intervene, and acts of intervention.…”

“…There is also some evidence of the perseverance of these effects at 4 month and 12 month follow‐ups. What remains unresolved is the relationship to actual rather than self‐reported behavior, whether the intervention works beyond the confines of a single university (but see Inman et al., ), and what the mechanisms by which the intervention might work actually are.…”

Effects of Mandatory Sexual Misconduct Training on University Campuses

“… 1 Exceptions include Inman et al (2018) and Worthen and Wallace (2021). Inman et al recruited a sample of study participants via e-mail and suffered high attrition in the posttest phase, thus introducing potential biases.…”