Despite prevention efforts, young women, particularly college students, experience sexual victimization at alarming rates, and do not always receive trauma-responsive treatment to address the devastating acute and long-lasting post-assault symptoms. Grounded in theory and research on trauma and sexual violence, the authors introduce a new…

Objective: High rates of sexual victimization among college students necessitate further study of factors associated with sexual assault risk detection. The present study examined how social information processing relates to sexual assault risk detection as a function of sexual assault victimization history. Participants: 225 undergraduates…

Although behavioral risk factors such as substance use have been hypothesized to increase women's vulnerability to sexual victimization, prospective studies provide mixed empirical support. In the current prospective study, the authors considered substance use, sexual activity, and sexual assertiveness as predictors of sexual victimization from…

Bullying has been a serious social issue in contemporary society. Traditionally, bullying has been examined in various social contexts and different populations including academic, community, and workplace settings. In recent years, although there has been an increasing number of publications about women's experiences of harassment and sexual…

Peer victimization is associated with increased risk for mental health problems. These adverse psychological outcomes are linked with altered cognitive and emotional processes and their related neural functioning. In the present study, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined whether peer victimization was associated with…

Educational backgrounds of incarcerated women differ from study to study, proportionate to the rest of the country; incarcerated women possess lower levels of educational attainment when they enter prison. Approximately 56% of women incarcerated in state prison entered without a high school diploma. Prior research on urban prisons indicates…

Objective: The Circle of Six (Co6) phone application (app), winner of the White House's "Apps Against Abuse Challenge," seeks to incorporate friends into sexual victimization risk reduction. Despite its growing presence on college campuses, the feasibility/acceptability of the app to college women is unknown. This mixed methods study…

Even though rape is the crime they fear most, women hold strong beliefs that their personal risk for sexual victimization is lower than the risk for other women. Victimization shatters illusions of invulnerability, and results in feelings of vulnerability, suggesting that sexual victimization should decrease women's perceived invulnerability for…

The present study utilizes the National College Health Risk Behavior Survey to examine the relationship between health-risk behaviors and sexual victimization among a sample of college women. A prospective design is utilized to examine the relationship between health-risk behaviors as measured at baseline and sexual victimization during a 3-month…

This retrospective investigation examined the association among childhood bullying victimization, multiple forms of victimization, and psychological functioning in a college sample. Four hundred-and-eighty-two undergraduate students participated in the study (M = 19.98 years, SD = 1.82). The sample included 65% women. For race/ethnicity, 66.4%…

Scientific investigations of the relationship between race and rape have been flawed by the acceptance of official statistics and have been influenced by prevailing myths about rape and race. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for understanding rape and race. The thesis is presented that only the black victim of sexual assault is viewed…

Computer-administered self-interviewing (CASI) has been advocated as a way of over coming under reporting of sensitive sexual behaviors. The present study compared reports of consensual and nonconsensual sexual behaviors (including childhood and adulthood sexual victimization) among women using CASI (n=1014) versus a self-administered…

Although adolescent females with asthma are at increased risk for bullying, relationships between bullying at school and electronic bullying and demographics, mental health issues, and substance use have not specifically been studied in these young women. The purpose of this research was to examine such relationships among adolescent females with…

Objective: The study assesses the prevalence of physical, psychological, sexual, and cyber forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) among female college students, and associated mental health and academic outcomes.Participants: Participants (n = 6,818) were randomly selected female students attending one of eight campuses of a University System in…

Compares male and female rape reporting behavior using data from the National Crime and Victimization Survey for 897 rape victims. Data indicate that the situational characteristics of rape and factors that influence reporting a rape differ by sex. Women reported victimization more frequently than did men. (SLD)