Undergraduate students (N=344) completed measures of violence in dating relationships. While 85 percent of respondents reported opposition to violence in romantic relationships, 25 percent of the women and 7 percent of the men reported experiences of violence in dating relationships. Twenty-two percent of women reported being involved in…

Acquaintance rape has been found to occur with disturbing frequency in an adolescents' social world. Unlike stranger rape, acquaintance rape, particularly dating rape, takes place in the context of normal social activity. In 1978, 432 adolescents, ages 14-18, were interviewed in the Los Angeles area: half male, and half female, and one-third drawn…

Investigated relationships between conflict tactics and coercive sexual behavior within relationships. College student surveys indicated that greater magnitudes of sexual coercion associated with higher levels of abusive conflict tactics and with psychological abuse within relationships. People engaging in psychological abuse were more likely to…

Sex differences are investigated in the use of sexual aggression in the dating relationships of single adult heterosexuals (N=380 males, 241 females; mean age 22.5). This study replicates and extends previous work by simultaneously testing the predictive ability of variables from three domains: social-environment, relational-environment, and…

Developed a scale of Rape Attitudes (tolerance of rape) and validated a modified version of the Gough Socialization Scale. For university students and adolescents, males and females, tolerance of rape was associated with sexist attitudes toward heterosexual relationships. For male adolescents, tolerance of rape and sexist attitudes were associated…

This study looked at the influence of an Asian sociocultural variable, loss of face or social integrity, as a predictor of perceptions of acquaintance rape among Japanese students. In addition to the expected associations between gender, sexism, and perceptions of rape, loss of face was predicted to interact with the perpetrator's reference group…

Examines the effects of the victim-perpetrator relationship (first date acquaintance, stranger, or steady dating partner) on college students' attributions of responsibility for forced intercourse and unwanted propositions. Investigates both behavioral and characterological components of victim and rapist responsibility. Discusses sex differences…

This report on sexual assault was written for adolescents. It contains data on teenage sexual assault from the National Youth Survey (NYS), a survey of a nationally representative sample of approximately 1,700 youths who were between 11 and 17 years old at the time of the project's initial interview and who were interviewed annually for 5 years…

Reviews current relevant literature regarding violence between dating partners on college campuses. Relates the incidence and forms of violence, characteristics of violent relationships, contributing factors, precipitators, and gender differences in dating violence. Describes the development of date violence prevention programs currently in place…

In 1979, reports of sexual harassment and accusations of sexual assault at the University of Rhode Island led to the formation of a Sexual Harassment Committee. One of the tasks undertaken by a subgroup of this committee was a survey of the university community to identify actual experiences of and the attitudes of student and staff toward sexual…

Data from a cross-cultural sample of tribal societies suggest that rape is part of a cultural configuration which includes interpersonal violence, male dominance, and sexual separation. Rape is interpreted as the sexual expression of these forces in society where harmony between men and their environment has been severely disrupted. (Author/MJL)

Romance novels have become increasingly popular and sexually explicit, in part because women may gain a sense of self through reading them and perhaps in reaction to the patriarchal structure of society. Women may seek escape and a sense of self-identity through the novels'"larger-than-life" characters and predictable endings. Readers of…