Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Published In

Psychology of Violence

Keywords

Bystander attitudes, Bystander behavior, Measurement, Sexual and relationship abuse, Abuse prevention, Prevention program assessment, Test construction, Test reliability, Test validity

Abstract

Objective: To address acknowledged limitations in the effectiveness of sexual and relationship abuse prevention strategies, practitioners have developed new tools that use a bystander framework (Lonsway et al, 2009). Evaluation of bystander-focused prevention requires measures, specific to the bystander approach, that assess changes over time in participants’ attitudes and behaviors. Few measures exist and more psychometric analyses are needed. We present analyses to begin to establish the psychometric properties of four new measures of bystander outcomes and their subscales. Method: We collected data from 948 first year college students on two campuses in the northeast United States. Items assessing attitudes and behaviors related to bystander helping responses in college campus communities for situations where there is sexual or relationship abuse risk were factor analyzed. Results: Measures of readiness to help (assessed specifically with scales representing taking action, awareness, and taking responsibility), intent to be an active bystander, self-reported bystander responses, and perceptions of peer norms in support of action all showed adequate reliability and validity. Conclusion: The study represents a next step in the development of tools that can be used by researchers and practitioners seeking both to understand bystander behavior in the context of sexual and relationship abuse and evaluating the effectiveness of prevention tools to address these problems. The measures investigated will be helpful for prevention educators and researchers evaluating the effectiveness of sexual and relationship abuse education tools that use a bystander intervention framework.

Grant Information

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by grant number 5 R01 CE001388-02 (PI: Banyard). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DOI

10.1037/a0033470

Comments

© American Psychological Association, 2013. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0033470.

Rights

© American Psychological Association, 2013.

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