SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN WOMEN'S SEXUAL ASSAULT EXPERIENCES BASED ON TACTICS USED BY THE PERPETRATOR

Only a few studies have examined the characteristics of sexual assault based on the tactics used by the perpetrator. In this study we compared the experiences of women who were forced to engage in vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse due to verbal coercion, physical force, or intoxication. Random-digit dialing was used to obtain a sample of 272 single African American and Caucasian women between the ages of 18 and 49 from the Detroit metropolitan area. Participants completed a computer-assisted self-interview that asked detailed questions about a past sexual assault and their reactions to it. Among the 139 women who were forced to engage in vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse, sexual assaults that involved physical force produced the most severe negative outcomes. Situations that involved the woman being too intoxicated to resist differed from others primarily in terms of how much alcohol the man and woman consumed. Although all types of sexual assault were perceived as being at least moderately serious, verbally coerced assaults were on average perceived as being least serious. These findings suggest that the perpetrators' tactics affect women's responses to sexual assault.     

Grief and Attitudes Toward Suicide in Peers Affected by a Cluster of Suicides as Adolescents

Eighty‐five young adults exposed to a cluster of peer suicides as adolescents completed measures of attitudes toward suicide, grief, and social support. Closeness to the peers lost to suicide was positively correlated with grief and the belief that suicide is not preventable, with grief further elevated in close individuals with high social support from friends. Overall, social support was related to healthy attitudes about suicide including preventability, yet it was also related to some stigmatizing beliefs. Compared with 67 young adults who had not been exposed to a suicide cluster, the exposed sample was more likely to think that suicide is normal but more likely to think of it as incomprehensible.     

Self–Objectification and its Psychological Outcomes for College Women

The objectification of women by our society can become internalized by women, resulting in negative psychological outcomes. Using Fredrickson and Roberts' (1997) objectification theory, we tested a model of the relationships between self–objectification and disordered eating and depressive symptoms in a sample of undergraduate women ( n = 384). One postulate of self–objectification theory is that self–objectification can lead to a lack of internal awareness, which may mediate the relationship between self–objectification and restrictive eating, bulimic, and depressive symptoms. Results of structural equation modeling suggest that self–objectification has a direct relationship to restrictive eating, bulimic, and depressive symptoms. The mediational role of internal awareness was relevant for depressive symptoms but not for restrictive eating or bulimic symptoms. Depressive symptoms did, however, mediate the relationship between self–objectification and bulimic symptoms. The relevance of our findings to the understanding of objectification theory are discussed and future areas of research recommended.