In this week’s Summit on Sexual Assault, presenters offered an array of perspectives on how best to prevent and respond to sexual assault on college campuses. What was clear throughout the conference was that the vast majority of participants – survivors and advocates, college administrators and White House officials and scientific researchers alike – were genuinely devoted to combating the issue. Yet less formal conversations about sexual assault are often fraught with tension or even hostility and are, unfortunately, often unproductive. A lack of transparency along with misconceived social norms which the majority of individuals privately reject, but falsely believe that others do not, has led to a perceived conflict of interests surrounding what should be a straightforward issue.
David Lisak, a noteworthy expert on sexual assault and co-host of the conference, stressed in his opening talk the importance of institutional transparency, particularly regarding data. Presenter Alan Berkowitz, known for pioneering the social norms approach to bystander intervention, also stressed the importance of open communication, including a commitment to ensure that students can access data from campus surveys. Even the most recent White House task force report recommends the implementation of a comprehensive campus climate survey.
In order for Dartmouth to increase institutional transparency, it is imperative that the College issue a campus climate survey and subsequently publish the collected data. Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson, following the April “Freedom Budget” sit-in and protest at Parkhurst Hall, signed an agreement to conduct such a survey by 2016 and publish the results. Though the timeline and logisitics for the survey’s implementation remain unclear, the agreement to conduct the survey is nonetheless important in demonstrating a clear ideological commitment to the values of openness and accountability regarding sexual assault.
But deciding to conduct and publish the results of this survey is far more than a mere nod to a certain ideology. Access and exposure to accurate, specific data – about one’s peers and one’s own community — has been shown to impact individual behavior. Indeed, Berkowitz’s own research on social norms demonstrates that individuals change their behavior when presented with data that corrects their misconceptions on a topic. Berkowitz found that when college-aged men were surveyed about their attitudes towards sexual violence and assault, 80 percent of them felt uncomfortable with the belittlement and maltreatment of women. A vast majority of them also believed in intervening in a potentially dangerous or abusive situation. However, these men greatly underestimated other men’s discomfort in such situations as well as other men’s likelihood of intervening. In short, what prevents men from intervening is not a personal belief that intervention would be wrong, but rather a perception that other men do not share such beliefs. In his study, Berkowitz corrected these misperceptions by presenting the participants with actual data that conveyed how their perceptions were far removed from reality. In follow-up surveys four and seven months post-study, men were more likely to intervene and less likely to associate with sexually aggressive peers. Berkowitz also found that women hold misconceptions about social norms surrounding rape, which can lead to increased high-risk behaviors and/or greater emotional fallout following a rape. Berkowitz’s research provides key insight into one of the largest, yet often overlooked, barriers to reducing sexual assault and increasing bystander intervention: misconceptions about social norms.
With Berkowitz’s research in mind, the significance of the campus climate survey is clear. The data from such a survey are invaluable resources in correcting widespread misconceptions about social norms at Dartmouth, at which point students who would then find themselves in the majority rather than the perceived minority could confidently address the issue with peer support. As Johnson said in a recent USA Today piece on the topic, we need to “share our knowledge so that we can make sure we’re doing the best thing for our students.” Knowledge must be made a collective and transparent resource in order to bring our community together and enact lasting change.
