Three studies are proposed to examine the relationship between alcohol consumption and sexual assault. Many researchers have documented that alcohol consumption and sexual assault co-occur, but detailed information is not available about the causal dynamics of this relationship.
The specific aims of the proposed research will address the alcohol-sexual assault linkage by examining: a) the role of actual alcohol consumption and the expectancy of alcohol consumption in misperceptions of sexual intent, b) women's and men's self-reported alcohol expectancies in the domains of sexuality, aggression, and sexual vulnerability for female and male drinkers and themselves, and c) perpetrators' self-reports of alcohol's role in sexual assaults which occur on dates. In each study, ethnic differences will be explored. Study 1 is a 2 (Expect Alcohol: yes, no) x 2(Consume Alcohol: yes, no) balanced placebo design. Eighty-four male-female dyads will interact and then rate each other's sexuality using the paradigm developed by Abbey (1982). It is hypothesized that participant gender and the expectancy of alcohol consumption will have main effects on sexuality ratings such that men and individuals who think they have consumed alcohol will rate female targets as behaving more sexually and being more interested in a sexual relationship than will women and individuals who do not think they have consumed alcohol. Study 2 is a 2 (Participant Gender) x 3 (Target: Women, Men, Self) repeated measure design in which 400 male and female study participants will indicate the effects which they believe alcohol has on drinkers. It is hypothesized that male and female raters will believe that alcohol enhances male drinkers' aggressiveness more than female drinkers' aggressiveness. Male raters are expected to believe that alcohol increases female drinkers' sexuality while female raters are expected to believe that alcohol decreases female drinkers' sexuality. Self-expectancies are expected to explain more variance in alcohol consumption than other expectancies. Study 3 will use the paradigm developed by Muehlenhard and Linton (1987) in which participants describe a recent date and a date which involved sexual assault. This paradigm will be augmented by adding a second data collection one year later so that prospective information is available. The role of alcohol, gender role beliefs, alcohol expectancies, personality traits, social pressure to drink alcohol, emotions, and attributions will be examined in 350 men, half of whom are expected to have perpetrated sexual assault on a date.
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