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Abstract
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There is no sugarcoating it: Porat et al. (2024) presented a damning wake-up call to the field of sexual-violence prevention. Their study's ultimate goals were to identify psychological theories that underpin primary prevention programs, whether and how they are evidenced to lead to behavior change, and how effective the programs based on them are. The bottom line from the thorough meta-analysis is that we have spent too much attention on changing knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes, which ultimately has not made a dent in sexual-violence perpetration rates. In this commentary, we provide additional thoughts on the study's findings and expanded recommendations for future policy, practice, and research.
As evidenced by Porat et al.'s meta-analysis, the predominant approach to the primary prevention of sexual violence has been, and still is, rooted in the idea that changing beliefs and attitudes will lead to behavioral change and ultimately a reduction in sexual-assault rates. In tracing the conceptual history of prevention programs, Porat et. al identified three major eras of how this theory of change was applied and three "zeitgeist" programs that define those time periods. The three programs identified as the most salient examples of their times were absent evidence of effectiveness in reducing sexual assault.
The first era is a movement from the socially accepted idea of rape as a women's problem and one primarily perpetrated by strangers to a focus on acquaintance rape prevention and healthy relationships. The catalyst program in this era, Safe Dates, focused largely on teen dating violence prevention, but the inclusion of measurements of sexual-violence-related outcomes as part of a randomized controlled trial made it a standout in shifting conversations about sexual violence.
The next era is a psychological shift to rape as a men's issue and putting the onus on men to prevent rape. The defining program of this era, The Men's Program, led to the proliferation of programs aimed at teaching men empathy for women as a means of getting them not to rape. Although this seemed like a logical idea, none of these male-focused programs showed empirical evidence of effectiveness at preventing perpetration behavior. Rather, some research has shown that empathy-building programs have iatrogenic effects, particularly for men who already subscribe to rape-supportive beliefs and attitudes. Empathy programs paint them as the bad guys, and they dig in their heels (Malamuth et al., 2018).
If our goal in primary prevention, as Porat et al. contended (and we agree), is to prevent perpetration, why did programs for men, who are the most likely perpetrators, drop off the radar? This is an empirical question. We hypothesize that one influence on the failure of these programs to progress into effective...''
Language: en |