Survivor‐focused timely warnings increase negative stereotyping of survivors but make readers feel safer

Abstract

AbstractUniversities in the United States issue “timely warnings” when a sexual assault occurs on campus. Timely warnings should make campuses safer by communicating information that allows community members to make informed personal safety decisions. Unfortunately, these warnings often undermine that safety goal by centering the survivor's actions (i.e., walking alone at night) and characteristics (i.e., wearing revealing clothes), rather than or in addition to the perpetrator's actions (i.e., followed the survivor to their house) and characteristics (i.e., wearing a red shirt). The present research investigated whether including survivor‐focused details in timely warnings causes readers to view survivors as less intelligent (i.e., why else would they walk alone at night?) and more promiscuous (i.e., why else would they wear revealing clothes?). Among three distinct samples (registered voters, US undergraduates, US based MTurk participants), we manipulated whether timely warnings included survivor‐focused details. Survivor‐focused, versus not survivor‐focused, warnings caused participants to view survivors as less intelligent (all three samples) and more promiscuous (US undergraduates and US based MTurk participants). Participants also felt safer when timely warnings focused on the survivor. Notably, feeling safer related to believing survivors were less intelligent (US based MTurk participants). We discuss how survivor‐focused timely warnings may ironically make campuses less safe by discouraging survivors from reporting crimes. Materials, data, and analysis code are available online (https://osf.io/acnqb/?view_only=4c9dd1c7abcd4a6bbd2c68e8412fcbdd).