Reactions to Disclosure of Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is very prevalent among college populations. It is known that disclosure impacts the post assault outcomes of sexual assault survivors. Disclosure can be the survivor’s access to resources and support; it can also be psychologically harmful if met with a negative reaction. Few studies have examined the experience of the recipient of disclosure. This study will implicate ways to instruct disclosure recipients on how to correctly respond to sexual assault survivors that disclose to them. This study examines the relationship between aspects of sexual assault survivors’ disclosure and the responses they receive from the disclosure recipients, in a sample of 100 college students. This study examines the role of severity of the survivor’s assault and recipients’ perceptions of blame, endorsement of rape myth, and history of sexual victimization on recipients’ encouragement of the survivor to report. All participants were asked to complete a series of questionnaires online via SONA and Qualtrics systems, assessing the severity of assault (attempted rape, drug or alcohol facilitated rape, forcible rape, combined) and the encouragement to report (to medical services, mental health services, etc.) Hypotheses were tested with linear and hierarchical regression analyses. Tests of mediation was conducted utilizing a bootstrapping procedure. It is expected that survivors who disclose forcible rape will be most likely encouraged to report to police authorities by their disclosure recipients. It is expected that Rape Myth Acceptance and victim blame will mediate the relationship between severity of the disclosure and the encouragement of disclosure recipients