Here’s why men often ignore campus sexual assault, according to a psychologist

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As an undergrad student decades ago, I attended a dorm presentation describing the importance of giving and receiving sexual consent. The workshop leaders explained that if your partner said “no” or “stop” but you proceeded to have sex anyway, it was considered rape.

A high-profile athlete on campus raised his hand and said, in utter disbelief, “That can’t be right. By that definition, everyone I’ve ever had sex with I’ve raped.”

I was horrified by his comment, but most students laughed. He clearly saw nothing wrong with the view he’d expressed, presumably believing it was widely shared.

I immediately thought of this experience when I heard about the alleged sexual assault committed by seven fraternity members at Cornell University. As a social psychologist and the author of a book examining why so-called good people stay silent in the face of problematic behavior, what I find most tragic about the events at Cornell is that reportedly over 50 men on a group chat learned about the assault as it was happening. Yet there’s been no public report that any of them tried to stop the assault, help the victim or contact campus or local police departments.

This type of inaction is very common. In about one-third of sexual assaults, at least one other person is present who potentially could intervene but in most instances chooses not to. Why?

Data suggests a minority of men actually commit sexual assault. Researchers estimate about 6.5% of male college students in the United States and Canada have committed rape. Yet many men who find sexual violence offensive mistakenly believe that other men do not.

Undergraduate men in one study reported their beliefs about common rape myths, such as “If a girl doesn’t physically fight back, you can’t really say it was rape,” and “If a girl goes to a room alone with a guy at a party, it is her own fault if she is raped.” Researchers then asked participants how they thought both their close friends and average male college students would answer these same questions.

The results provided clear evidence that college men have skewed views of what those around them are thinking. Most students saw their classmates and friends as more supportive of rape myths than they themselves were.

Unfortunately, believing that other men generally accept sexual violence – even when this belief is wrong – inhibits their willingness to intervene to stop such behavior when they encounter it. In fact, men’s beliefs about their peers’ attitudes are a stronger predictor of their willingness to intervene than their own stated attitudes about sexual aggression.

Men who underestimate their peers’ discomfort with sexually aggressive behavior often fear the consequences of calling out problematic views or intervening in the face of inappropriate behavior. The most common reason male college students give for failing to intervene in situations involving sexual violence is a fear of being laughed at or ridiculed – in particular, a desire not to appear weak to other men.

Men who actually commit assault also tend to overestimate support for such behavior. Not surprisingly, men who report having committed sexual assault believe that other men are more accepting of such behavior and have engaged in such behavior themselves.

This assumed support leads them to feel comfortable describing problematic behavior, which leads other men to believe that sexual violence is more common, and more accepted, than it actually is.

Given the consistent evidence that men wrongly believe that most men are more comfortable with sexual violence than they themselves are, the challenge is not to change the social norm. It’s getting people to see what it actually already is.

Correcting such misperceptions can go a long way toward reducing sexual violence. First-year male college students who participate in a 90-minute sexual assault prevention program – focused on refuting rape myths, increasing awareness of the importance of consent, and correcting misperceptions about other men’s attitudes and behaviors – report reduced levels of sexual aggression themselves four months later.

These programs work in two ways. First, men who receive accurate information about what other men actually believe are less inhibited about speaking out and intervening. Second, men who are at risk of engaging in sexual aggression may change their intentions after learning that their peers do not support such behavior.

At the same time, men in tight-knit groups feel considerable pressure to show loyalty to other group members, which may lead to ignoring bad behavior committed by their peers.

Catherine A. Sanderson is a Poler Family Professor of Psychology, Amherst College.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.