We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Yes, No, Maybe So: The Effects of Relationship Status on Perceptions of Inferred Consent.
- Authors
Pazos, Laura A.; Cash, Daniella K.; Russell, Tiffany D.
- Abstract
Despite the notion that sexual consent is either granted or refused, its communication can sometimes be ambiguous. This uncertainty stems from the tendency to rely on implicit, nonverbal cues to indicate consent. Without clear, explicit communication, people might be encouraged to rely upon contextual information when assessing whether a sexual encounter was consensual. Perceived levels of intimacy and familiarity in a relationship might influence these perceptions, such that prior intimacy might lead to ambiguously communicated consent being interpreted as more consensual. Gender roles can dictate the behaviors expected in a sexual encounter, with female-initiated sexual violence against men potentially being perceived as more consensual than the inverse. The current study examined how relationship type (Experiments 1 and 2) and gender pairing (Experiment 2) influenced participants' perceptions of how consensual various sexual encounters were. Participants read a series of vignettes in which sexual consent was verbally granted, verbally rejected, or inferred using nonverbal cues. Additionally, the dyads' relationships were either described as dating, friends, or strangers. Following vignette presentation, participants provided judgments regarding how consensual the interactions were. Experiment 2 expanded upon this by manipulating the gender of the initiators and targets. When consent was not clearly indicated, more established relationships were associated with higher ratings of perceived consent. Male targets were attributed more responsibility for sexual interactions, and they were also believed to want nonconsensual sex more than female targets. These findings highlight the importance of contextual information in instances where sexual consent is unclear.
- Subjects
GENDER role; SEX crimes; PROMPTS (Psychology); VIOLENCE; DATA analysis; ATTITUDES toward sex; HUMAN sexuality; RESEARCH evaluation; SPOUSES; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; NONVERBAL communication; SEX customs; INFORMED consent (Medical law); IMPLICIT bias; ANALYSIS of variance; STATISTICS; DOMESTIC violence; COMPARATIVE studies; CASE studies; JUDGMENT (Psychology); INTERPERSONAL relations; DATING violence; FRIENDSHIP
- Publication
Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2024, Vol 39, Issue 13/14, p3110
- ISSN
0886-2605
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/08862605231225515