Transcript Knowledge About the Diagnosis and Treatment of Children with ASD

Tipping the scales: Student and community judgments of weight in sexual
coercion scenarios
Alexandra M.
1
Zidenberg ,
Leigh
1Laurentian University,
2University
Introduction
• People often believe that sexual assault is a crime motivated by
sexual desire (Clarke & Stermac,2011; Maeder et al., 2015)
• When individuals believe that sexual assault is motivated by desire,
they may be particularly susceptible to the idea that a woman must
have been sexually desirable in order for her to become a victim of
sexual assault (Maeder et al., 2015)
• The bulk of research has focused on general physical attractiveness,
such as facial features, and other features such as weight, are ignored
(Clarke & Lawson, 2009)
• Overweight women are often seen as lazy, unattractive, sexual
undesirable, and sexually inexperienced (Clarke & Lawson, 2009)
• Powers and colleagues (2015) found that college experience was
largely non-predictive of RMA
• The liberalizing effect of higher education should decrease sexism,
including RMA, so these results are surprising (Powers et al., 2015)
• Rape myths and sexism may be so entrenched in our society that
education is unable to change opinions (Powers et al., 2015)
• This study examines the effect of victim weight on perceptions of
sexual coercion
• compares Rape Myth Acceptance and Anti-Fat
Attitude scores between student and community
samples
Methods
Recruitment
• Community and student participants were recruited
• Social media was used to recruit participants online
• Students taking Introductory Psychology at UOIT were recruited for
course credit
Mock jury paradigm
• Participants were asked to read a vignette depicting a thin or
overweight victim in a situation involving sexual coercion
• Participants were then asked to answer questions about the case as if
they were serving on a jury
Measures
• The Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Payne et al., 1999) & The
Anti-fat Attitudes Scale (Morrison & O’Connor, 1999)
• Higher scores on the RMA and AFA indicate more rejection
2
Harkins ,
& Carl
1
Newton
Sudbury, Ontario
of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario
Vignette
Please imagine that you have been selected to be a juror in an alleged sexual
assault trial. Presented below is a copy of the police report filed by the
complainant on the night in question. Please read this information carefully and
take a few moments to fully picture the scene in your mind. Please pay close
attention to the police report as you will be asked to recall information about
the report. When you are ready, please answer the questions that follow.
On Sunday December 13, 2010, at approximately 12pm, the following complaint
was filed with the York Region Police by Susan Ellen Keenan. Susan Keenan is
described as a 20 year old female, approximately 5’5” tall. She has a
[thin/overweight] build, brown hair and brown eyes. She is a university student and
lives in Markham with her older sister.
At approximately 7:30pm on the evening of December 12, 2010, Susan Keenan went
to dinner at a restaurant in Toronto’s downtown core with her boyfriend Michael
Paulson. Both parties had dinner and Susan had a couple alcoholic drinks, she
reported feeling “tipsy”. The couple left the restaurant around midnight and went
to Michael’s house located in downtown Toronto. The couple entered Michael’s
house, watched a movie, and began to kiss passionately. Susan made it very clear
that she did not want to have sex that night. Michael was very disappointed and told
her that if she did not want to have sex, then she could leave. Susan informed him
that the GO Bus service to Markham had stopped running at this hour. After this
exchange, Michael continued to pressure Susan for the next hour. Eventually Susan
stopped protesting and had sexual intercourse with Michael. The next morning,
Susan collected her things and returned to her home in Markham once GO service
had resumed. At that point, her sister brought her to the District 5 station on
McCowan Road to report the incident.
After giving her statement, Susan Keenan provided detectives with the contact
information for Michael Paulson and the Toronto Police Services were contacted. Mr.
Paulson was brought in for questioning and, after reviewing the evidence, a charge
of sexual assault was filed against him.
Participants
144 participants:
75 Students
69 Community members
Gender (%)
Male
42
Female
56
Non-binary
2
Average Age (SD)
Student Sample
Community Sample
Province(%)
Ontario
26 (19.86)
21 (3.97)
31 (11.41)
90
Results
• A one-way ANOVA was used to compare the means of the RMA and AFA
scales between the student and community sample
• The assumption of homogeneity was violated, therefore Welch’s test was
used
• There were no statistically significant differences between group means for
AFA; Welch’s F(1,128.97) = 2.79, p = .10
• There was a statistically significant difference between the student and
community sample in terms of RMA; Welch’s F(1,108.41)=31.25, p< .001
Scores
Anti-Fat Attitudes Scale
Community Sample
Student Sample
Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale
Community Sample
Student Samples
Mean
SD
15.62
14.48
3.92
3.92
94.89
79.77
11.89
18.15
Discussion
• There was a 15.12-point discrepancy between the community and the
student sample
• Previous research states that there should be no effect of education on
RMA (Powers et al., 2015)
• Rape myth acceptance might be a function of age (Powers et al., 2015)
• Older individuals may be less likely to endorse rape myths
• Our community sample was older than our student sample, so it may
explain our unexpected results
Implications
• This study is the first to examine anti-fat attitudes and situations of
verbal sexual coercion
• Weight is often one of the characteristics first observed when dealing
with survivors, so it is important to understand peoples’ perceptions
• This study adds to the literature comparing RMA in students and other
populations
• This study has important implications in terms of sexual assault
prevention campaigns on campuses