Perceptions Of Consent Research Articles

The Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Perceptions of Consent and Refusal Indicators in a Fictional Alcohol-Involved Sexual Encounter

ABSTRACT Alcohol intoxication may influence how bystanders interpret other people’s consent and refusal cues. We examined the effects of alcohol intoxication on participants’ perceptions of characters’ consent and refusal indicators in a fictional vignette depicting an alcohol-involved sexual encounter. Young adults (n = 119, 52% women) participated in an alcohol administration experiment examining the influence of acute intoxication on bystander perceptions during a vignette depicting a character who is intoxicated and declines a sexual advance from another character, who ignores her refusal and continues to pursue sexual activity. Participants were randomly assigned to an alcohol or non-alcohol condition and then guided through a semi-structured interview in which we asked about the characters’ consent and refusal cues. Interviews were analyzed using both inductive and deductive coding. Most participants eventually indicated the encounter was nonconsensual, but approximately 9% of participants described the encounter as entirely consensual and another 42% of participants described the interaction as initially consensual and then nonconsensual. Participants discussed nuanced accounts of consent and refusal cues, including indicators related to alcohol consumption. Disregarding intoxication and gender, participants eventually recognized the situation as nonconsensual and thus potentially risky. However, some participants recognized this risk earlier in the encounter than others. Consequently, bystanders who recognize risk later in a situation may have fewer opportunities to intervene before a situation escalates. We recommend sexual assault prevention educators take a more nuanced approach when discussing consent and refusal indicators, emphasizing contextual factors that may indicate risk.

Just One Shot? The Contextual Effects of Matched and Unmatched Intoxication on Perceptions of Consent in Ambiguous Alcohol-fueled Sexual Encounters.

The current research examined how contextual factors-the quantity of alcohol consumed by each partner, and whether this quantity matched-influenced how alcohol-fueled sexual encounters were perceived with regard to consent, coercion, sexual assault, and perceived responsibility of the focal partner for the outcome of the encounter. Across four studies (Ntotal = 535), participants read vignettes in which one person described a sexual encounter they had following a night out drinking. These scenarios differed within studies as a function of quantified alcohol consumed (1 shot; 15 shots) and whether both people in the vignettes consumed the same amount of alcohol (matched; unmatched). They also differed between studies as a function of whether the couples described were mixed gender or same gender. Across all four studies, scenarios in which both people in the scenario consumed different quantities of alcohol (i.e., 15 vs. 1 shot) were seen as less consensual, more coercive, and more likely to be an assault compared to scenarios where consumption was matched, especially at lower levels of intoxication (i.e., 1 shot each vs. 15 shots each). However, focal partners were also seen as less responsible for the outcome of the interaction when levels of intoxication were unmatched compared to matched. This pattern replicated across scenarios depicting same-gender and mixed-gender couples. These findings suggest that people prioritize information regarding whether sexual partners are "matched" or "unmatched" in terms of their intoxication when evaluating whether ambiguous sexual encounters are consensual and perceived individual responsibility.

Where Lies the Truth? Accuracy and Diverging Perspectives in Interpersonal Perception

Organizing becomes difficult when people do not see eye to eye. For instance, we often assume that others think and feel about us in the same way that we think and feel about them. These assumptions are often inaccurate, and yet people tend to act on their assumptions before they learn of their (in)accuracy. As a result, employees who misperceive others’ behavior may act in ways that disrupt coordination, reduce productivity, and tarnish relationships. Central to all of these issues is understanding how different people perceive the same behavior as enacted by a given individual. To deepen our understanding of interpersonal (mis)perception in organizations, the presentations in this symposium examine how behaviors of interest to employers are viewed from multiple vantage points (e.g., expressor versus recipient; recipient versus observer). Our first two presentations examine actor-observer differences in perceptions of consent and social sexual behavior; our third presentation examines dyadic meta-accuracy in flirting behavior; our fourth presentation examines self-other differences in perceptions of creative idea generation; our fifth presentation examines interpersonal perception in the context of goal attainment. Consent is in the Eye of the Beholder: Actors and Observers See Consent Differently Presenter: Vanessa Bohns; Cornell U. Presenter: Roseanna Sommers; U. of Chicago Law School Female Actor Attractiveness Leads to Men's Favorable Perceptions of Social Sexual Workplace Behavior Presenter: Sonya Mishra; UC Berkeley Presenter: Margaret Lee; Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley Presenter: Laura Kray; U. of California, Berkeley Do We Know Who Flirts with Us? Dyadic Meta-Accuracy Among Men and Women Presenter: Casher Belinda; Kenan-Flagler Business School, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Presenter: Shimul Melwani; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill The “Eureka!” Bias: People Believe Others Generate Ideas More Quickly Than the Self Presenter: Juliana Schroeder; U. of California, Berkeley Presenter: Elizabeth R. Wilson; Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Presenter: Adam Waytz; Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Hitting Your Target: How Both Exceeding and Failing Goals Damage Interpersonal Impressions Presenter: Sara Clark Wingrove; Fuqua School of Business, Duke U. Presenter: Danbee Chon; Duke U. Presenter: Jessica Jee Won Paek; Fuqua School of Business, Duke U. Presenter: Richard Paul Larrick; Duke U.

Reflecting the Times? Reexamining the Effect of Alcohol Intoxication on Perceptions of Campus Sexual Assault.

We examined the effects of victim and perpetrator alcohol intoxication on perceptions of campus sexual assault. Participants (N = 276) read a campus assault vignette; both perpetrator and victim intoxication levels were manipulated. Participants reported attitudes toward both parties and perceptions of responsibility, blame, and criminal and civil liability. Contrary to some past research, participants blamed victims less-and more strongly considered the incident rape or sexual assault-when victims were highly intoxicated. Perceptions were most punitive toward sober perpetrators with highly intoxicated victims. Results suggest possible shifts in perceptions of consent, further discussed in the context of historical and population factors.

Understanding How University Students Use Perceptions of Consent, Wantedness, and Pleasure in Labeling Rape

While the lack of consent is the only determining factor in considering whether a situation is rape or not, there is sufficient evidence that participants conflate wantedness with consent and pleasurableness with wantedness. Understanding how people appraise sexual scenarios may form the basis to develop appropriate educational packages. We conducted two large-scale qualitative studies in two UK universities in which participants read vignettes describing sexual encounters that were consensual or not, wanted or unwanted and pleasurable or not pleasurable. Participants provided free-text responses as to whether they perceived the scenarios to be rape or not and why they made these judgments. The second study replicated the results of the first and included a condition where participants imagined themselves as either the subject or initiator of the sexual encounter. The results indicate that a significant portion of our participants held attitudes reflecting rape myths and tended to blame the victim. Participants used distancing language when imagining themselves in the initiator condition. Participants indicated that they felt there were degrees of how much a scenario reflected rape rather than it simply being a dichotomy (rape or not). Such results indicate a lack of understanding of consent and rape and highlight avenues of potential educational materials for schools, universities or jurors.

Creating conversations about consent through an on-campus, curriculum embedded week of action

ABSTRACT Sexual violence is a widespread issue on university campuses. Although not a new concern, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom (UK) have only recently implemented prevention strategies. Many approaches focus on increasing knowledge of consent and related harms, but are rarely evaluated, or sit outside of the curriculum. While research is increasing, students’ perceptions, on-campus experiences, support-seeking and reporting preferences remain unclear. This article presents a case study of an award-nominated, annual ‘Consent’ week of action involving inter-disciplinary, cross-campus, curricula-embedded workshops and events. 171 students and 10 staff completed a 25-item survey focusing on event feedback, sexual violence victimisation experiences, bystander intervention opportunities, reporting preferences, support service knowledge and perceptions of consent. Our findings suggest sexual violence is prevalent, with many students witnessing incidents, but not knowing where to report or seek advice. Reasons included self-management, stigma, safety concerns, limited faith in existing reporting mechanisms and the normative nature of sexual violence within UK HEIs. Students and staff rated the ‘Consent’ week as excellent, particularly in increasing knowledge around consent, which students appear to find difficult to navigate. Our work highlights the importance of embedding consent-related initiatives within existing programme curricula, highlighting challenges and recommendations for future initiatives.

Blame Attributions in Multiple Perpetrator Rape Cases: The Impact of Sympathy, Consent, Force, and Beliefs.

Victims of multiple perpetrator rape (MPR) have been found to be an especially vulnerable group. This study examined effects of MPR and perpetrators' use of force on attributions of victim and perpetrator blame. In two large experiments (total N = 2,928), Swedish community members read scenarios depicting an MPR and subsequently made several ratings of blame, rape myth acceptance (RMA), just world beliefs, sympathy for the victim, perception of consent, and trust in the legal system. Data were analyzed with a multianalytical approach using both analyses of variance as well as exploratory analyses. In Experiment 1, more blame was attributed to a victim of MPR than a victim of a lone perpetrator rape (LPR). In Experiment 2, no effect of used force was found on levels of attributed blame. In both experiments, hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that four components, identified through principal components analyses, explained substantial shares of the variance in both victim and perpetrator blame. The best individual predictors were participants' perception of consent, sympathy for the victim, and RMA. The study shows the importance of studying participants' beliefs and attitudes about rape and that victim-blaming research needs both theory development and greater methodological awareness. Implications for victim support services are also discussed.

Public preference for data privacy – A pan-European study on metro/train surveillance

This paper presents a pan-European application of a stated preference discrete choice experiment for eliciting respondents’ preferences for various data-privacy settings in the context of security and surveillance of train/metro facilities in Europe. Results show that respondents across the 27 European Union Member States (EU27) prefer some Closed Circuit Television Cameras (CCTV) surveillance across in all countries, except Sweden where the most advanced type of CCTV with face recognition capabilities is preferred. Most respondents prefer that CCTV data is stored for future use rather than just being used for real-time monitoring, with the exception of respondents in Greece. However, an intermediate period of storage (15days) is preferred over a shorter or longer duration (45days). Respondents across the EU27 are averse to police force outside their home country having access to CCTV data. Respondents prefer the presence of unarmed security personnel over absence of security personnel. The majority of respondents are averse to any kind of security checks. However, in Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the UK there is a preference for randomly selected people to go through a metal detector or full body scanner. Further this study shows that preferences also vary by age and gender. Overall, analysis of the data illustrates the complexity of the privacy over security debate as it pertains to transportation infrastructures. In particular, the increased use of transportation user data for various reasons (efficiency, safety and security) can pose complex social and ethical challenges to users, especially around perceptions of consent, accountability and transparency.

Vulnerable Subjects: Why Does Informed Consent Matter?

This special issue of the Journal Law, Medicine & Ethics takes up the concern of informed consent, particularly in times of controversy. The dominant moral dilemmas that frame traditional bioethical concerns address medical experimentation on vulnerable subjects; physicians assisting their patients in suicide or euthanasia; scarce resource allocation and medical futility; human trials to develop drugs; organ and tissue donation; cloning; xenotransplantation; abortion; human enhancement; mandatory vaccination; and much more. The term "bioethics" provides a lens, language, and guideposts to the study of medical ethics. It is worth noting, however, that medical experimentation is neither new nor exclusive to one country. Authors in this issue address thorny subjects that span borders and patients: from matters dealing with children and vaccination to the language and perception of consent.

Perceptions of consent in adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour

This article explores perceptions of consent in adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour (HSB). It discusses society's constructions of the adolescent in terms of emerging sexuality, and examines definitions of HSB in terms of adolescents and gender. The terminology of consent, and what it means will be examined in depth in relation to the context in which it is referred to. The article also explores interventions aimed at tackling the issue of HSB and perceptions of consent in adolescence. For clarity, this article discusses HSB directed at 10–19-year-olds only.

Perceptions of consent, permission structures and approaches to the community: a rapid ethical assessment performed in North West Cameroon.

BackgroundUnderstanding local contextual factors is important when conducting international collaborative studies in low-income country settings. Rapid ethical assessment (a brief qualitative intervention designed to map the ethical terrain of a research setting prior to recruitment of participants), has been used in a range of research-naïve settings. We used rapid ethical assessment to explore ethical issues and challenges associated with approaching communities and gaining informed consent in North West Cameroon.MethodsThis qualitative study was carried out in two health districts in the North West Region of Cameroon between February and April 2012. Eleven focus group discussions (with a total of 107 participants) were carried out among adult community members, while 72 in-depth interviews included health workers, non-government organisation staff and local community leaders. Data were collected in English and pidgin, translated where necessary into English, transcribed and coded following themes.ResultsMany community members had some understanding of informed consent, probably through exposure to agricultural research in the past. Participants described a centralised permission-giving structure in their communities, though there was evidence of some subversion of these structures by the educated young and by women. Several acceptable routes for approaching the communities were outlined, all including the health centre and the Fon (traditional leader). The importance of time spent in sensitizing the community and explaining information was stressed.ConclusionsRespondents held relatively sophisticated understanding of consent and were able to outline the structures of permission-giving in the community. Although the structures are unique to these communities, the role of certain trusted groups is common to several other communities in Kenya and Ethiopia explored using similar techniques. The information gained through Rapid Ethical Assessment will form an important guide for future studies in North West Cameroon.

Perceptions of Sexual Consent: The Impact of Relationship History and Gender

The current study examined how situational (i.e., couple-specific relationship experience) and participant (i.e., gender) factors influence attributions about sexual consent. Four hundred and fourteen undergraduates were randomly assigned to read one of three vignettes in which consent for sexual intercourse was ambiguous. Within the three conditions the couple's relationship history was manipulated. A 2 × 3 between subjects multivariate analysis of variance revealed that, as the degree of intimacy between the couple increased, perceptions of consent, acceptability, and clarity increased. A main effect for participant gender also was found. Men, more than women, perceived the scenarios as more consensual, acceptable, and clear regardless of relationship experience. No interaction was found. These findings are discussed in light of sexual precedence and sexual scripts.

Likelihood of Acquaintance Rape as a Function of Males’ Sexual Expectations, Disappointment, and Adherence to Rape-Conducive Attitudes

Past research has found that individual differences in both attitudinal and situational variables may be associated with males’ likelihood of acquaintance rape (LAR). The present research was conducted to examine the predictive value of both attitudinal and situational factors on males’ likelihood of forcing a female acquaintance to have non-consensual sexual intercourse. In Study 1, male and female respondents (Rs) were presented with a scenario depicting a hypothetical sexual interaction between the respondent and a newly acquainted member of the opposite sex. As the encounter progressed from one sexual activity to the next, Rs made three ratings regarding their own and partner’s intent to engage in each successive activity. The scenario ended with the female refusing further activity and males’ affect ratings, adherence to attitudes conducive of rape, and LAR were measured. Males’ initial perceptions of female sexual intent (to later engage in sexual intercourse) best predicted LAR. Study 2 was conducted to examine the role of female sexual communication on perceptions of consent to sexual intercourse. Rs were presented with a scenario similar to that in Study 1, but at each stage were requested to rate the extent to which the female had consented to engage in each sexual activity. Males completed the same affect and attitudinal measures. The results of Study 2 again suggested that males’ initial perception of female consent to (later) engage in sexual intercourse best predicted LAR. The present research suggests that further investigation into the role of situational factors and males’ initial perception of sexual intent and consent in the aetiology of acquaintance rape is required.

Patients' understanding and opinion about informed consent for coronary angiography in a rural Japanese hospital.

Based on an anonymous questionnaire obtained from 102 Japanese in-patients at a rural Japanese hospital who underwent coronary angiography, the patients understanding of information about the procedure, their perception of consent and their attitude toward it were investigated. The patients were able to recall 63.8% of the contents of the information. There was a statistically significant correlation between the patients' educational status and the recall test score of the information. Older (65 years old and above) patients had a tendency to entrust decision making to their physicians. Only 19.6% of the patients made the decision to undergo a coronary angiography by themselves. After being informed of the risks 40.2% of the patients felt more anxious. In conclusion, our patients could not recall the contents of the information sufficiently. There still existed a tendency to entrust important decisions to the physician especially in older patients. The patients had a tendency not to face difficult problems solely by themselves but with the support of family members.

Patients’ Perceptions of Consent

Previous articleNext article No AccessPatients’ Perceptions of ConsentIan ShenkIan ShenkGeorgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C. Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 5, Number 3Fall 1994 Published on behalf of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/JCE199405311 © 1994 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.