Primed for action: The unique role of Greek life in bystander helping behaviors

Sexual assault has become an increasingly acknowledged problem on college campuses nationwide. Women are more likely to experience sexual violence during college than any other time in their life (Martin, Fisher, Warner, Krebs, and Lindquist, 2011). The chances increase tremendously for those women in a social sorority. Research has shown that women in Greek life are three times as likely to report sexual victimization than non-sorority members (Mohler-Kuo, Dowdall, Koss, and Wechsler, 2004). Additionally, Minow and Einolf (2009) found that 33 percent of sorority members reported they had experienced completed rape compared to 6 percent of non-sorority members. Many studies have examined sexual assault perpetration and victimization rates among Greek life members, but there is little research on those interested in Greek life and helping behaviors.With the recent policy changes, such as the Campus SaVE Act, requiring prevention programs, like bystander intervention programs, be implemented at all college campuses and universities it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of these prevention programs. The goal of the current research was to evaluate The Take a Stand! bystander intervention program training for incoming freshman interested in Greek life at a state university and evaluate whether the 35-minute training video would increase participants’ bystander efficacy and decrease the barriers to intervening.This study found that participants who completed the training were less likely to report a barrier to intervening due to a skill deficit compared to those who did not complete the training. However, there were no differences between the experimental and control groups, those who completed the training and those who did not, in the remaining four barriers: failure to notice, failure to identify the situation as high risk, failure to take intervention responsibility, and failure to intervene due to audience inhibition. Additionally, differences did not exist between those who completed the training and those who did not in perceived confidence to intervene (the bystander efficacy scale)