An Acquaintance Rape Prevention Program

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of an acquaintance-rape prevention program on college students' attitudes toward rape and attitudes toward women, perceptions of acquaintance-rape scenarios, and rape empathy. Participants were led to believe that they were participating in two separate experiments in order to decrease demand characteristics. Results indicated that intervention group men and women became more empathic toward the victim than the control group, postintervention. Within the intervention group, men changed more in their attitudes toward women postintervention than did women. In addition to positive attitude change, results with the date-rape scenarios suggested that intervention-group men became more certain of their definitions of rape situations postintervention. Prior to the intervention, women were generally more certain of their definitions than were men, with intervention-group men approximating women's responses postintervention.