Audrey K. Miller

THE EVALUATION OF A SEXUAL ASSAULT SELF-DEFENSE AND RISK-REDUCTION PROGRAM FOR COLLEGE WOMEN: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY

The present study evaluated the efficacy of a sexual assault risk-reduction program that included a physical self-defense component for college women (N = 500). Program group women significantly increased their protective behaviors over the 6-month follow-up period compared to the waiting-list control group. However, there were no significant differences between the two groups regarding rates of sexual victimization, assertive communication, or feelings of self-efficacy over the follow-up periods. Program group women who were victimized during the 3-month follow-up period evidenced less self-blame and greater offender blame for their assaults than control group women who were victimized following the program. Given that program women evidenced a greater awareness of sexual assault at the end of the study than control group women, the difficulty in addressing the impact of programming on rates of sexual victimization is discussed.

Self-Blame Among Sexual Assault Victims Prospectively Predicts Revictimization: A Perceived Sociolegal Context Model of Risk

This investigation focused on relationships among sexual assault, self-blame, and sexual revictimization. Among a female undergraduate sample of adolescent sexual assault victims, those endorsing greater self-blame following sexual assault were at increased risk for sexual revictimization during a 4.2-month follow-up period. Moreover, to the extent that sexual assault victims perceived nonconsensual sex is permitted by law, they were more likely to blame themselves for their own assaults. Discussion focuses on situating victim-based risk factors within sociocultural context.

On Individual Differences in Person Perception: Raters’ Personality Traits Relate to Their Psychopathy Checklist–Revised Scoring Tendencies

This study investigated raters’ personality traits in relation to scores they assigned to offenders using the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL-R). A total of 22 participants, including graduate students and faculty members in clinical psychology programs, completed a PCL-R training session, independently scored four criminal offenders using the PCL-R, and completed a comprehensive measure of their own personality traits. A priori hypotheses specified that raters’ personality traits, and their similarity to psychopathy characteristics, would relate to raters’ PCL-R scoring tendencies. As hypothesized, some raters assigned consistently higher scores on the PCL-R than others, especially on PCL-R Facets 1 and 2. Also as hypothesized, raters’ scoring tendencies related to their own personality traits (e.g., higher rater Agreeableness was associated with lower PCL-R Interpersonal facet scoring). Overall, findings underscore the need for future research to examine the role of evaluator characteristics on evaluation results and the need for clinical training to address evaluators’ personality influences on their ostensibly objective evaluations.

Deconstructing Self-Blame Following Sexual Assault: The Critical Roles of Cognitive Content and Process:

As part of a larger study, predictors of self-blame were investigated in a sample of 149 undergraduate sexual assault survivors. Each participant completed questionnaires regarding their preassault, peritraumatic, and postassault experiences and participated in an individual interview. Results confirmed the central hypothesis that, although several established correlates independently relate to self-blame, only cognitive content and process variables— negative self-cognitions and counterfactual-preventability cognitions—uniquely predict self-blame in a multivariate model.

Death Anxiety in Persons with HIV/AIDS: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

One of the most commonly cited psychological sequelae of HIV/AIDS is anxiety regarding death due to the illness (i.e., death anxiety; DA). However, extant research is inconclusive on several empirical issues, such as DAs relation to HIV/AIDS diagnostic status, the impact of illness-related symptoms on DA, and factors that may protect against DA. We conducted a systematic review of the empirical literature and meta-analysis to answer specific questions concerning correlates of DA in persons with HIV/AIDS and important factors that may help explain variability in effect size estimates. The meta-analysis included 18 studies (N = 1,757) examining DA in adults with HIV/AIDS. Meta-analytic findings indicated a small-to-medium effect of HIV/AIDS diagnostic status on DA, which was moderated by duration since diagnosis and by relation to the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy. Results also indicated a small effect of illness-related symptoms on DA, which was moderated by participant age. Social support and intrinsic religiosity were modest protective factors, but results indicated that extrinsic religiosity may exacerbate or be exacerbated by DA. Finally, results indicated a medium-to-large relation between psychological symptoms and DA. The implications of these results and other study findings are discussed.

Expressed Sexual Assault Legal Context and Victim Culpability Attributions

Legal scholars have argued that laws have an expressive function, specifically that sexual assault laws may convey social-level messages that victims are culpable for crimes against them. In a university sample, we conducted the first experimental test of legal scholars’ proposal, hypothesizing that legal messages—specifically their clarity and effectiveness in conveying that sexual assault is a crime—affect victim culpability attributions. Results demonstrated that greater culpability was attributed to a victim of sexual assault within a context expressing unclear and ineffective sexual assault law than within a context clearly and effectively expressing that sexual assault is a crime. We also garnered empirical support for a mediation model, that is, negative affective reactions to a victim statistically accounted for the relationship between expressed legal context and victim culpability attributions. Implications for future psycholegal research and potential legal reforms are discussed.

Openness, right-wing authoritarianism, and antigay prejudice in college students: a mediational model.

Research has indicated that people who are more open to novel and diverse experiences express less prejudicial views concerning minority group members. The openness-prejudice relationship, however, may be mediated by the degree to which individuals adhere to traditional social convention and absolutist thinking patterns. Thus, informed by the Dual-Process Cognitive-Motivational Model of ideology and prejudice (Duckitt, 2001; Duckitt & Sibley, 2009) and the Five-Factor Model of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 2003), we investigated right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) as a mediator of the relationship between openness and antigay prejudice. Participants were college students from universities in the mid-Atlantic (Sample 1, n = 199) and southeastern (Sample 2, n = 244) United States. Hypotheses were tested in both samples. First, bivariate relations among openness, RWA, and antigay prejudice were assessed. Second, RWA was tested was a mediator of the relationship between openness and antigay prejudice. Results supported expected bivariate associations in that openness negatively, and RWA positively, associated with antigay prejudice. Moreover, results showed that RWA mediates the negative relationship between openness and antigay prejudice. Implications of the supported model are discussed with respect to antigay prejudice theory as well as prejudice-reduction interventions for use on college campuses.

Parsimony in Personality: Predicting Sexual Prejudice

Extant research has established numerous demographic, personal-history, attitudinal, and ideological correlates of sexual prejudice, also known as homophobia. The present study investigated whether Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality domains, particularly Openness, and FFM facets, particularly Openness to Values, contribute independent and incremental variance to the prediction of sexual prejudice beyond these established correlates. Participants were 117 college students who completed a comprehensive FFM measure, measures of sexual prejudice, and a demographics, personal-history, and attitudes-and-ideologies questionnaire. Results of stepwise multiple regression analyses demonstrated that, whereas Openness domain score predicted only marginal incremental variance in sexual prejudice, Openness facet scores (particularly Openness to Values) predicted independent and substantial incremental variance beyond numerous other zero-order correlates of sexual prejudice. The importance of integrating FFM personality variables, especially facet-level variables, into conceptualizations of sexual prejudice is highlighted. Study strengths and weaknesses are discussed as are potential implications for prejudice-reduction interventions.

Psychopathy Development and Implications for Early Intervention

This article reviews the fledgling psychopathy development and intervention literatures. We conclude that long-term, intensive, multiple systems interventions, which integrate cognitive-behavioral and motivation-enhancement techniques, provide the greatest promise for youths exhibiting psychopathy features.

Distress Resulting From Perceivers’ Own Intimate Partner Violence Experiences Predicts Culpability Attributions Toward a Battered Woman on Trial for Killing Her Abuser: A Path Model

Intimate partner violence (IPV) constitutes the majority of assaults against women in the United States, and greater than one third of female homicide victims are murdered by an intimate partner. In a small percentage of cases, battered women kill their abusers, and evidence of battering and its effects may be used to support a plea of self-defense in these cases. Prior research has shown that culpability attributions toward battered women who have killed their abusers are influenced by perceiver variables, including gender. The present study expands on this research by examining the influence of psychological distress resulting from perceivers’ own IPV experiences—and the mechanisms of this influence—on their culpability attributions toward a battered woman defendant. Female undergraduates in the present sample (N = 154) read a vignette, adapted from an actual criminal case about a battered woman who had killed her abuser. Data supported a hypothesized path model, wherein participants reporting greater psychological distress resulting from IPV perpetrated against them perceived themselves more similar to the defendant, in turn empathized with her to a greater extent, and, in turn, attributed less legal culpability to her. Implications for future research are discussed.