Citation

Melkonian AJ, Ham LS, Bridges AJ, Fugitt JL. J. Am. Coll. Health 2017; 65(7): 466-473.

Affiliation

University of Arkansas.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/07448481.2017.1341897

PMID

28617101

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: High rates of sexual victimization among college students necessitate further study of factors associated with sexual assault risk detection. The present study examined how social information processing relates to sexual assault risk detection as a function of sexual assault victimization history. PARTICIPANTS: 225 undergraduates (Mage = 19.12, SD = 1.44; 66% women).

METHODS: Participants completed an online questionnaire assessing victimization history, an emotion identification task, and a sexual assault risk detection task between June 2013 and May 2014.

RESULTS: Emotion identification moderated the association between victimization history and risk detection such that sexual assault survivors with lower emotion identification accuracy also reported the least risk in a sexual assault vignette.

CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that differences in social information processing, specifically recognition of others' emotions, are associated with sexual assault risk detection. College prevention programs could incorporate emotional awareness strategies, particularly for men and women who are sexual assault survivors.

Language: en

Keywords

Sexual assault prevention; emotion recognition; risk detection; social information processing