The SSA’s Natalie Davies talks to ESCRC-funded PhD student Samuel Hales about his research on sexual aggression in UK male university students. They discuss the overlap between alcohol consumption, male aggression, and violence. He also talks about the need to adapt and pivot in research, and strategies for researchers to successfully promote their work outside of academia.
SSA: You recently had a paper published in the journal of Sexual Abuse, titled “Understanding Sexual Aggression in UK Male University Students: An Empirical Assessment of Prevalence and Psychological Risk Factors”. Can you tell our readers what the study sought to find, and why it was important to investigate this topic/question?
Samuel: “As researchers, we have known for years that university students are at an increased risk of both experiencing and perpetrating sexually violent behaviours. These offences are associated with lots of negative and long-term outcomes, including acute psychological disorders, drug and alcohol addiction, and gynaecological complications. Unfortunately, unlike in other countries (e.g. the US), there has been no scientific research conducted with university students in the UK who engage in harmful sexual behaviours during their studies. Therefore, there is no solid basis on which to develop effective strategies to prevent sexual violence on university campuses nationally.”
We found that those with a history of perpetration were more likely to hold derogatory and sexist attitudes about women, support offence-excusing myths associated with sexual assault and rape, and report higher levels of aggression.
“To the best of our knowledge, our study provides the first scientific assessment of sexual violence perpetration amongst UK male students – the main perpetrators of sexual crimes on university campuses across the country – and offers a much-needed insight into the prevalence and causes of their harmful sexual behaviours. We hope that our findings can be used by researchers and policymakers to develop more robust interventions to tackle university-based sexual violence, thus making campuses safer environments for students to live and study.”
What were the main findings of your research, and what were the implications for prevention?
“Across our two studies, we found that 11.4% of our 554 male student participants admitted to perpetrating at least one sexually violent act in the past 2 years. These offences spanned a spectrum of illegal sexual behaviours – from non-consensual sexual touching through to attempted or actual rape – and were typically committed against female students known to the perpetrator. In most cases, these offences were committed whilst victims were incapacitated (e.g. through excessive alcohol consumption or drug use) and unable to stop what was happening.”
Our findings do suggest that universities should invest more in intervention strategies that examine male students’ attitudes towards women and sexual violence, as well as their tendencies towards aggressive sexual and non-sexual behaviours.
“Using statistical modelling techniques, we discovered that participants who reported recent sexual violence possessed worrying psychological characteristics that differentiated them from non-offending participants. Specifically, we found that those with a history of perpetration were more likely to hold derogatory and sexist attitudes about women, support offence-excusing myths associated with sexual assault and rape, and report higher levels of aggression. They were also more likely to admit to having sexual fantasies that mapped onto either inappropriate, harmful, or illegal sexual behaviours, such as hurting one’s sexual partner or humiliating them during sex.”
“Though our participants’ sexually violent behaviours cannot be explained by these four factors alone, our findings do suggest that universities should invest more in intervention strategies that examine male students’ attitudes towards women and sexual violence, as well as their tendencies towards aggressive sexual and non-sexual behaviours. This will help universities to identify students who may be at risk of committing a sexual offence during their studies and provide them with adequate support to reduce their likelihood of offending.”
You pointed out in your paper that alcohol consumption is the most studied situational variable relevant to university-based sexual aggression, and this was one of the risk factors that you sought to investigate. Unfortunately, you were unable to analyse this in the end. Can you tell us why, and share what you learned about measuring alcohol consumption in this context, and whether there is anything you would do differently next time (e.g. different assessment tools)?
“Many US studies have highlighted a strong link between alcohol consumption and sexual violence perpetration and victimisation amongst university students. Similarly, we know that many university students (particularly in the UK) consume alcohol at worrying levels, with several passing the clinical cut-off for alcohol dependence. Therefore, we sought to examine in our studies whether UK male students’ drinking behaviours were linked to their illegal sexual behaviours. To do this, we asked participants to complete the Daily Drinking Questionnaire (DDQ) – a popular survey instrument that assesses alcohol consumption based on participants’ typical drinking behaviours over the past 3 months. Unfortunately, we had to drop the measure from our analyses as several participants did not complete it correctly and we were unable to differentiate between those who provided accurate responses and those who did not. This was really disappointing for us as a research team, as we hypothesised a strong association between participants’ scores on the DDQ and our measure of past sexual violence.”
“Thankfully, hope is not lost as we are currently in the process of writing up a follow-up study that investigated the link between situational variables (i.e. those relevant to the environments in which sexual violence occurs) and male students’ perpetration behaviours, which included a more robust measure of alcohol consumption (the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test). The results of this study are quite surprising, so keep your eyes open as we’re hoping our paper will be released soon!”
Your article gained a lot of traction on social media, and was also covered by major media outlets such as Vice News and The Guardian. Many of our readers are researchers and students. Can you give them any insight into what factors led to your research being picked up, and in general how they can successfully promote their work outside of academia?
“There is no perfect recipe for achieving media success; however, there are certainly things that you can do to encourage the wide dissemination and uptake of your work.”
“First, I’d encourage students and early-career researchers who are looking to publicise their research to build relationships early on with prominent journalists in your field. I was fortunate in that there were lots of UK journalists who had written stories about university sexual violence in recent years, but even if you research more niche topics, there will still be those who are interested in your work and who would pen a story based on your research findings.”
“Second, it is always wise to think early on in a research project about your dissemination plan. Ask yourself, how do you plan to distribute your work? Are there any outlets or key figures you should be targeting? How about special interest groups or mailing lists? Considering questions such as these at the start of your research journey will help guide your work and ensure that, come publication, your article is being directed to the people who will share it and use it most.”
“Third, look for opportunities to incorporate your work into prominent public and media conversations. News stories about sexual assault and rape at universities will always allow us the opportunity to discuss our research findings, but there are also opportunities that present themselves more subtly. For example, whilst our work on sexual violence isn’t directly related to drink spiking (a major news story currently), it does link to the wider issue of gender-based violence, which incorporates both offences. Finding ways to re-stimulate your research like this will ensure the longevity of your work and encourage research impact.”
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