TY - JOUR A1 - Marchewka, Juliette A1 - Tomaszewska, Paulina A1 - Schuster, Isabell A1 - Krahé, Barbara T1 - Unacknowledged and missed cases of sexual victimization BT - a comparison of responses to broad versus behaviorally specific questions JF - Aggressive behavior : a multidisciplinary journal devoted to the experimental and observational analysis of conflict in humans and animals N2 - From the beginning of systematic research on sexual victimization, it has been recognized that a substantial proportion of women report nonconsensual sexual experiences meeting the defining criteria of rape in response to behaviorally specific items, but do not acknowledge their experience as rape in response to broad questions about whether they have ever been raped. Recent studies suggest that rates of unacknowledged rape may be as high or even higher among men than among women. This study examined rates of unacknowledged female and male victims of rape and sexual assault by comparing responses to behaviorally specific items of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S) with responses to broad questions using the labels of sexual assault and rape (SARA) in 593 participants (303 women) in Germany. As predicted, more women and men were classified as rape victims based on behaviorally specific items than on the basis of the broad rape item. The rates of unacknowledged rape were about 60% for women and 75% for men. The gender difference was not significant. Against our prediction, no significant differences in acknowledgement of sexual assault were found in relation to coercive strategy and victim-perpetrator relationship. Few cases of rape and sexual assault identified by the SARA items were missed by the behaviorally specific questions. The implications for establishing prevalence rates of rape and sexual assault and for comparing victims and nonvictims in terms of vulnerability factors and outcomes of sexual victimization are discussed. KW - Germany KW - rape KW - Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale KW - sexual assault KW - sexual victimization KW - unacknowledged victims Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.22043 SN - 0096-140X SN - 1098-2337 VL - 48 IS - 6 SP - 573 EP - 582 PB - Wiley-Liss CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schuster, Isabell A1 - Tomaszewska, Paulina A1 - Marchewka, Juliette A1 - Krahé, Barbara T1 - Does question format matter in assessing the prevalence of sexual aggression? BT - A methodological study JF - The journal of sex research N2 - As research on sexual aggression has been growing, methodological issues in assessing prevalence rates have received increased attention. Building on work by Abbey and colleagues about effects of question format, participants in this study (1,253; 621 female; 632 male) were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S). In Version 1, the coercive tactic (use/threat of physical force, exploitation of the inability to resist, verbal pressure) was presented first, and sexual acts (sexual touch, attempted and completed sexual intercourse, other sexual acts) were presented as subsequent questions. In Version 2, sexual acts were presented first, and coercive tactics as subsequent questions. No version effects emerged for overall perpetration rates reported by men and women. The overall victimization rate across all items was significantly higher in the tactic-first than in the sexual-act-first conditions for women, but not for men. Classifying participants by their most severe experience of sexual victimization showed that fewer women were in the nonvictim category and more men were in the nonconsensual sexual contact category when the coercive tactic was presented first. Sexual experience background did not moderate the findings. The implications for the measurement of self-reported sexual aggression victimization and perpetration are discussed. KW - self-report measures KW - experiences survey KW - risk-factors KW - victimization KW - rape KW - assault KW - women KW - perpetration KW - reliability KW - responses Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1777927 SN - 0022-4499 SN - 1559-8519 VL - 58 IS - 4 SP - 502 EP - 511 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER -