The relationship between cultural and psychological factors and their effects on bystander interventions in sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) situations

Thesis (M.A., Psychology (Counseling Psychology))--California State University, Sacramento, 2014.This thesis explores the serious problem of intimate partner violence (IPV) and the influence of ethnicity on bystander intervention, an emerging stance and tactic in the field of IPV. Researchers in the field of sexual IPV intervention have found that gender, perception of the attitudes of others toward bystander intervention, prior IPV education and awareness, attitudes toward dating violence, and rape myth acceptance influence one???s willingness to intervene. The current study proposes to examine the aforementioned variables with the inclusion of ethnicity, ethnic identity, socioeconomic status, and years lived in the US. Participants were 299 college-aged students, with 237 women and 62 men. Results partially supported the proposed hypotheses and found that ethnic identity and victim blaming rape myth acceptance emerged as significant predictors of willingness to intervene in a sexual IPV situations. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research directions are discussed.Psychology (Counseling Psychology