Women’s reactions to participating in dating violence research: A mixed methodological study

OBJECTIVE: To explore reactions to participation in research concerning dating violence (DV) within women's current relationships and how study participation influenced women's thoughts toward their current partners and relationships. METHODS: Mixed-methodological study with 940 college women, including closed-ended survey questions and an open-ended question inquiring about participants' reactions to research participation. RESULTS: Women generally reported low levels of emotional reactions to research participation, moderate levels of personal benefits to research participation, and a small to moderate percentage of participants reported shifting reactions toward their partners and relationships. In general, the presence of DV experiences (victimization more consistently than perpetration), lower relationship commitment and satisfaction, and higher posttraumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms were related to lower levels of feeling more positive about one's relationship or partner as a result of research participation and higher levels of the following: emotional reactions to research participation, personal benefits to research participation, feeling negative toward and afraid of one's partner as a result of research participation, and thinking about ending the relationship as a result of research participation. Qualitative coding of women's open-ended responses was consistent with quantitative findings and provided additional details on how and why (e.g., insight, validation, and normalization) the study affected women's perceptions of their partners and relationships. Qualitative analyses also underscored the likely minimization and normalization of DV, some of which seemed to be related to research participation. CONCLUSION: The finding that this research was generally well-tolerated by participants is reassuring to those committed to the scientific study of DV and can be used to assuage concerns of institutional review boards.