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
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/33799 |
| Date | 03 March 1998 |
| Creators | Sandras, Eric |
| Contributors | Moran, Patricia |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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