The purpose of this study is to explore gender differences in adult perceptions of sexual abuse encounters between an adult male and children of both genders and of various ages. Subjects were four hundred and fifty three students from a northwestern university. They were recruited from a lower-level human development course and from introductory courses in the arts and humanities department. One hundred and seventy-nine males and 274 females participated in the study. Participants were randomly given one of four vignettes that contained a scenario describing an "ambiguous" sexual encounter between a neighbor man and a child. The age of the child (5 or 13) and the child's gender differed between the scenarios. Results showed that female respondents were more likely than their male counterparts to perceive that the encounter was serious in nature (p=.022) and to expect the child in the scenario to be negatively impacted by the encounter (p=.001). Other results indicated that female respondents perceived the encounter with the older child, regardless of the child's gender, as more serious in nature (p=.008) and would have more negative outcomes (p=.002) than the encounter with the younger child. Male respondents also perceived that the encounter with the older child would have more negative outcomes for the child (p=.003) than the encounter with the younger child. Gender of child in the scenario was not predictive of perceived seriousness of the encounter nor of the negative impact of the encounter for either male or female respondents. Conclusions and implications are discussed. / Graduation date: 1998