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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: Men's self-reported rates of sexual aggression against women are high, although there is considerable variability across studies. The Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) is the most commonly used self-report measure; however, the use of multiple versions with somewhat different questions and formats may affect participants' responses. The goal of this study was to compare the findings from three different versions of the SES in terms of prevalence, as well as convergent and discriminant validity.
METHOD: Men ages 18-35 (N = 938) were recruited through MTurk for a study of men's dating and sexual experiences with women. The survey included measures of demographics; convergent and discriminant validity indicators; and one randomly assigned version of the SES.
RESULTS: Participants who completed the 45-item Abbey, Parkhill, and Koss (Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29, 2005, 364-373) tactics-first version of the SES reported overall higher rates of sexual assault perpetration (43.4%) as compared to those who completed the 35-item Koss et al. (Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 2007, 357-370) acts-first version (27.9%) and the 16-item Abbey, Jacques-Tiura, and LeBreton (Aggressive Behavior, 37, 2011, 450-464) full sentence version (31.1%). Self-reported rates of completed rape perpetration did not significantly differ between versions (9.7%-14.1%). Correlations between the number of sexually aggressive acts which participants endorsed with common risk factors and discriminant validity indicators were similar for all three versions.
CONCLUSIONS: The consistency in rates of self-reported completed rape across these disparate measures is noteworthy. Further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to evaluate how question phrasing affects reports of verbal coercion and if additional strategies should be included in future measures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Language: en |