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Objective: This study examined whether the use of party-safety strategies weakens the association between frequency of party attendance and sexual victimization among first-year female college students. Participants: First-year female college students (n = 450) from three universities in the United States participated in this study. Methods: Participants completed questionnaires on frequency of party attendance, use of party-safety strategies, and sexual victimization. Results: Frequency of party attendance was positively associated with sexual victimization. This association was moderated by use of party-safety strategies: frequency of party attendance was unrelated to sexual victimization when students reported greater use of party-safety strategies. However, frequency of party attendance was positively related to sexual victimization when students reported lower use of party-safety strategies. Conclusions: Teaching and reinforcing party-safety strategies may be helpful additions to efforts to prevent sexual victimization on college campuses.

Objective: Individuals who take action to reduce sexual assault can experience a range of positive and negative consequences as a result of helping. This study examined how different types of consequences explain variation in confidence and intent to help. Participants: Nine hundred sixty-six individuals who reported intervening in a situation involving interpersonal violence; approximately half were recruited from university psychology courses and half through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Data were collected from September to December of 2016. Methods: Participants completed measures of consequences related to helping, bystander efficacy, and intent to help. Results: Positive reactions from victims and other individuals who witnessed the situation were related to higher efficacy and intent, while negative reactions were associated with lower efficacy and intent. Actionists' personal feelings (ie, positive and negative) about their behavior mediated these relationships. Conclusions: Bystander training on campuses should address the range of potential consequences actionists face.

Objective: Research on adolescent relationship violence often involves having adolescents report on physically forceful acts, such as pushes and hits, that have occurred in the context of dating relationships. The present study compares: (a) adolescents who reported having experienced acts of physical force by a dating partner and attributed it solely to playfulness (playful only); (b) those who reported having experienced such acts and attributed at least some to conflict, anger, or jealousy (violent); and (c) those who reported not having experienced acts of physical force in their dating relationships (no physical force). Adolescents were compared on anxiety, depression, relationship satisfaction, and psychological violence. Method: Adolescents (n = 1,077) completed measures of anxiety, depression, relationship satisfaction, and psychological violence. Results: Adolescents in the playful-only group reported lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of relationship satisfaction, compared to adolescents in the violent group. Additionally, adolescents in the playful only group reported higher levels of depression than those in the no physical force group. Adolescents in the playful only group reported higher levels of psychological violence than those in the no physical force group and lower levels than those in the violent group. Conclusions: Adolescents who experienced physically forceful acts only in a playful context were not as distressed as those who experienced such acts in the context of conflict, anger, or jealousy; however, adolescents who experienced physically forceful acts only in a playful context still appear to be more distressed than those who do not experience physically forceful acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescents who have been sexually abused commonly experience trauma symptoms, and many are referred for trauma-based treatment. However, they sometimes spend considerable time on waitlists before beginning treatment. This study examines the course of trauma symptoms among adolescents who have been sexually abused and are waiting for treatment, and the extent to which self-blame for the abuse predicts trauma symptoms at the beginning of treatment. Participants were 127 adolescents (89.0% female, Mage = 13.61 years; 53.2% identified as Hispanic) at a Children's Advocacy Center in the southern United States. All had reported being sexually abused. Participants reported on their trauma symptoms and self-blame appraisals at a screening assessment (T1), and trauma symptoms were re-assessed at the beginning of treatment (T2). The mean level of trauma symptoms declined over time for the total sample. Regression analyses indicated that greater self-blame for the abuse at T1 was associated with higher levels of trauma symptoms at T2, even when controlling for T1 trauma symptoms and other correlates of T2 trauma symptoms. Higher levels of trauma symptoms at T1 and adolescent sex (female) were also associated with higher levels of trauma symptoms at T2. Findings suggest that assessing for self-blame for sexual abuse may be important in triage and treatment planning for youth with trauma symptoms after experiencing sexual abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined how interpersonal racial discrimination experiences operate together with other forms of interpersonal violence to contribute to mental health symptoms among justice-involved adolescents of color. Participants were 118 justice-involved adolescents of color aged 14 to 17 (M = 15.77, SD = 1.08; 52.5% male; 77.1% Black/African American) and their mothers. At baseline, adolescents reported on experiences of interpersonal racial discrimination, harsh parenting, teen dating violence, and exposure to interparental physical intimate partner violence. At baseline and the 3-month follow-up assessment, adolescents reported on trauma symptoms, and adolescents and their mothers reported on the adolescents' externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Multivariate multilevel modeling results indicated that interpersonal racial discrimination experiences contributed additively to adolescent mental health symptoms at both the baseline and 3-month follow-up assessments, after accounting for exposure to other forms of interpersonal violence. The current findings highlight the importance of considering adolescents' experiences of interpersonal racial discrimination, together with other forms of interpersonal violence, in work focused on understanding the mental health symptoms of justice-involved adolescents of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the effectiveness of bystander programs that address sexual violence on college campuses. Program effects on student attitudes/beliefs and bystander behavior were examined. Durability of program outcomes and the influence of program-delivery methods (e.g., facilitator-led programs vs. video, online or poster campaign programs) and program-parameters (e.g., program length) were also evaluated. Methods: Twenty-four studies met criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis, and 207 separate results from these studies were coded. Results: Students who participated in a bystander program, compared to those who had not, had more pro-social attitudes/beliefs about sexual violence and intervening to prevent it, and engaged in more bystander behavior. Program effects diminished over time, but meaningful changes persisted for at least three months following program delivery. Longer programs had greater effects than shorter programs on attitudes/beliefs. Conclusions: Bystander programs can be a valuable addition to colleges' violence prevention efforts.

Purpose: Parental support is theorized to promote healthy child development and is a frequent target of brief parenting programs. However, evaluations of these brief programs often rely on parents' self-reports. This randomized controlled trial uses mothers' self-reports and observational methods to evaluate the Project Support Positive Parenting module—a brief parenting program designed to enhance parental support. Method: After completing a pretreatment assessment, 73 mothers and their children (40 girls; aged 6–12 years) were randomized to the Project Support module or to a wait-list control group. Families also completed posttreatment and follow-up assessments. Results: Results of multilevel modeling analyses showed that mothers randomized to the Project Support module demonstrated greater improvements over time in mothers' self-reports of parent–child communication and observed respect for their child's views, compared to mothers in the control condition. Discussion: Results suggest that the Project Support Positive Parenting module can result in changes in parental support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intimate partner violence affects one in three U.S. women. Children often witness the violence. Methods: A 4-year cohort analysis of 300 mother-child dyads used latent growth curve techniques to examine the impact of partner violence on mothers' and children's mental health and function over time. The dyads entered the study when the mother sought safe shelter or justice services. Data was collected every four months, 13 times. Results: Four models were derived, each with good fit. Maternal age, Adverse Childhood Events, and ethnicity determined the level of maternal PTSD, depression, and anxiety at baseline. Mothers' self-efficacy and marginalization determined if maternal mental health symptoms decreased or increased over 4-years. Maternal symptom levels determined if child dysfunctions persisted over time. Conclusion: This analysis provides longitudinal evidence that maternal mental health determines children's recovery from or persistence of behavioral dysfunctions. Primary prevention and informed referral has the potential to improve child outcomes., Author(s): Judith McFarlane [sup.1] , Nina M. Fredland [sup.1] , Lene Symes [sup.1] , Weidan Zhou [sup.2] , Ernest N. Jouriles [sup.3] , Mary Ann Dutton [sup.4] , Christopher S. [...]

This article describes a conceptual model of cognitive and emotional processes proposed to mediate the relation between youth exposure to family violence and teen dating violence perpetration. Explicit beliefs about violence, internal knowledge structures, and executive functioning are hypothesized as cognitive mediators, and their potential influences upon one another are described. Theory and research on the role of emotions and emotional processes in the relation between youths' exposure to family violence and teen dating violence perpetration are also reviewed. We present an integrated model that highlights how emotions and emotional processes work in tandem with hypothesized cognitive mediators to predict teen dating violence.

Objective: Despite extensive efforts to develop sexual assault prevention programs for college women, few have been rigorously evaluated, and fewer have demonstrable effects on victimization. This study pilots the Dating Assertiveness Training Experience (DATE), designed to train young women in assertiveness skills for responding to sexual coercion and to provide them opportunities to practice these skills in a safe environment. Participants: One hundred thirty-nine female college students from a private university in the Southwest. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to DATE or a no-treatment control group. Sexual victimization and response to acts of sexual aggression were assessed prior to randomization, after intervention, and monthly for 3 months. Results: Women who completed DATE were less likely to be victimized than women in the control condition; those who were victimized were more likely to respond assertively. Conclusions: Assertiveness training for resisting sexual coercion holds promise for reducing sexual victimization of young women. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

This study evaluated the validity of a role-play procedure that uses virtual reality technology to assess women's responses to sexual threat. Forty-eight female undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either a standard, face-to-face role-play (RP) or a virtual role-play (VRP) of a sexually coercive situation. A multimethod assessment strategy was used to evaluate the efficacy of the role-play procedure in creating a realistic and immersive situation. Consistent with our hypotheses, women in the VRP condition exhibited greater negative affect and immersion than women in the RP condition. In addition, the level of assertive refusal in the VRP, but not the RP, condition differentiated between women with and without a prior history of sexual victimization. These findings provide evidence of the validity of a virtual role-play procedure for assessing women's responses in sexually threatening situations. (Contains 2 figures.)