NCJ Number
191893
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2001 Pages: 331-344
Date Published
December 2001
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This study examined the impact of types of women's verbal refusals and the timing of her refusal on men's discerning when a woman wants her partner to stop making sexual advances.
Abstract
Male students were randomly assigned to one of six conditions (Explanations x Intimacy Levels). Before listening to an audiotape of a date rape, participants were told they would be listening to an interaction between a man and a woman who had just returned from a date. They were instructed to indicate when the woman wanted the man to stop making sexual advances by pressing a switch that synchronously stopped a timer (yielding the measure of latency). In the vignette, the woman provided an explanation for not engaging in sexual intercourse on the date either during kissing or when the man attempted to touch her breasts. She offered one of three reasons for refusing his sexual advances: fear of pregnancy, waiting until marriage, and too early in the relationship. A total of 190 males participated in the experiment; the majority of participants were Caucasian. "Response latency" (length of time needed by participants to determine when the woman on the audiotape wants the man to stop his advances) was used as the dependent measure. Participants' response latencies were recorded as the time lapse between the first refusal by the woman in the audiotape and the activation of a switch by the participant. The Sexual Experiences Survey was used to measure the experiences of sexual aggression among participants. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, a self-report questionnaire, was used to estimate the degree to which the Sexual Experiences Survey and latency measures may have been affected by a socially desirable pattern of responding. A demographic questionnaire was also administered. The findings revealed an interaction in which participants in the "too early in the relationship explanation at the level of breast contact" condition displayed significantly longer latencies than individuals in the other groups. The findings suggest that the content of the woman's refusal, combined with the level of intimacy at which this explanation is provided, may affect how seriously her "No" will be taken by her partner. 1 table and 22 references