Normative Misperception of Sexual- and Alcohol-Related Predictors of Sexual Assault by College Men

Abstract

Objective.

Peer influences may play a maintaining or contributing role in alcohol-related sexually aggressive behavior (SAB) in undergraduates. Undergraduate men substantially overperceive their peers’ SAB-related attitudes and behaviors (i.e., show substantial misperception of SAB-related social norms). Moreover, men at high risk of perpetrating SAB often show greater overestimation than lower-risk peers. The current work provides a comprehensive description of SAB-related social norms within a large sample of undergraduates, examining five novel normative misperceptions associated with alcohol-related SAB, and evaluating relations between social norms and self-reported histories of both contact and noncontact SAB.

Method.

Undergraduate men (n = 567) endorsing attraction to women from two large state universities in different regions of the United States responded to questions about sexual attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities. They completed these measures twice: once from their own perspective, and then from the perspective of the typical college male (TCM).

Results.

Students showed large overestimation of peers’ general and alcohol-specific attitudes and behaviors. Many self and normative perceptions were also significantly related to a self-reported history of noncontact or contact SAB.

Conclusions.

Relative to self ratings, TCM ratings were overestimated for all assessed constructs and thus represent targets of future prevention efforts. Men who reported an SAB history often showed more marked misperceptions, speaking to the potential utility of providing corrective normative feedback to these undergraduates in future work. Future prevention efforts may benefit from providing personalized normative feedback to undergraduates, and particularly high-risk students, about the accuracy of their peer perceptions.

Male-initiated sexually aggressive behavior (SAB) toward women is a serious public- health problem on college campuses across the United States (Koss et al., 2022). Approximately 25% of college women report being sexually assaulted by a man during college (Cantor et al., 2019). Despite a Congressional mandate for sexual-assault prevention programs on federally funded college campuses, current prevention strategies are inadequate and may have iatrogenic effects for men at high risk of SAB (DeGue et al., 2014; Malamuth et al., 2018). The overarching aim of the present work is to inform future efforts to prevent SAB that target inaccurate peer norms. In order to achieve this goal, we characterize college men’s perceptions of an array of their peers’ sexual attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities (e.g., an inclination toward engaging in SAB), both when alcohol is and is not present. This study builds on existing work by evaluating a comprehensive battery of normative misperceptions within a large sample, which allows us to compare effect sizes of potential normative misperceptions relevant to SAB among college students. We also evaluate five potentially novel sources of normative misperceptions, including rape and force proclivity (e.g., how likely someone reports they would be to engage in sexual aggression if they were guaranteed not to experience negative consequences), alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes, alcohol-specific consensual sex and dating behavior, contact SAB using alcohol-specific tactics, and noncontact SAB. We also evaluate whether men who report a history of SAB, relative to those who do not, show greater misperception of their peers’ sexual attitudes, proclivities, and behaviors. Here, misperception refers to any significant discrepancy between participants’ perceptions of their peers and actual average self-reports from a large sample of their peers. Such data can then be used to address whether college men overperceive their peers’ attitudes and behaviors in these domains. Notably, a history of SAB could be indicated by “contact” offenses, or sexual aggression involving nonconsensual touching of another’s body, or by “noncontact” offenses, such as showing someone pornographic pictures when they had not agreed to look at them or staring at someone in a sexual way after having been asked to stop (Koss et al., 2007; Malamuth et al., 2021).

Contemporary theoretical models of SAB, as well as substantial empirical evidence, implicate an array of interrelated proximal predictors (Abbey et al., 2011; Malamuth & Hald, 2017; Spencer et al., 2022; Swartout, 2013; Thompson et al., 2015), including three of particular interest in the current context. First, perceived peer approval of and engagement in contact SAB predicts contact SAB (Jacques-Tiura et al., 2015; Swartout, 2013; Thompson et al., 2015). Alcohol consumption is also linked to contact SAB, with 50–75% of contact SAB episodes occurring when the victim, perpetrator, or both have consumed alcohol (Abbey et al., 2014; Koss et al., 2022). However, many SAB proximal predictor variables traditionally have not incorporated the presence of alcohol. Finally, sociosexuality, a preference for short-term, casual, impersonal sex, is a well-established correlate of contact SAB (Malamuth & Hald, 2017), as is the broader concept of risky sexual behavior, which also incorporates unprotected sexual behavior (Davis et al., 2018). Importantly, Malamuth et al. (2021) recently demonstrated that all three variables correlated with noncontact SAB to a similar degree as contact SAB.

From the vantage of social-norms theory, this literature suggests the potential utility of simultaneously evaluating college men’s perceptions of peer attitudes, proclivities, and behaviors in the overlapping domains of SAB, alcohol consumption, and sociosexuality (Berkowitz, 2010; Orchowski et al., 2016). Perceived peer norms are typically measured by asking male participants to respond to items from the perspective of the ‘typical college male’ (TCM) or other relevant reference group, after they have responded to the items from their own perspective. Thus, we can calculate the actual average response provided from the “self’ perspective and obtain an estimate of normative perceptions by averaging responses given from the TCM perspective. We can compare these two values to estimate normative misperception for each variable. Such data can then be used to address whether college men overperceive their peers’ attitudes, proclivities, and behaviors. We can also determine whether over perception is more marked among high-risk vs low-risk students (e.g., those who do and do not report an SAB history). Misperceived attitudinal, proclivity, and behavioral norms could increase risk for SAB, particularly given the well-established role of peer influences on SAB (e.g., Berkowitz, 2010; Swartout, 2013; Thompson et al., 2015). Fortunately, social-norms perspectives suggest the potential utility of providing feedback on the accuracy of normative perceptions as a prevention strategy (Berkowitz, 2010; Miller & Prentice, 2016; Orchowski et al., 2018; 2020). In the remainder of the introduction, we first review the existing literature on college men’s social norms for alcohol consumption, sociosexuality, and SAB. Then we provide an overview of the current work.

Normative Misperception of Sex and Alcohol-Related Attitudes and Behaviors

Within the alcohol consumption domain, college men report inflated peer approval of risky alcohol-related behavior such as drinking to get drunk, playing drinking games, and drinking enough to pass out (e.g., Lewis et al., 2010). Participants also report that the TCM consumes more alcohol and does so more frequently than the average college man actually reports (e.g., Perkins et al., 2005). Normative perceptions related to drinking correlate positively with individuals’ own attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, consistent with social-norms theory (e.g., Lewis et al., 2010; Perkins et al., 2005). Normative feedback has been found to be an efficacious treatment component when targeting heavy episodic drinking (Dotson et al., 2015).

These patterns are also evident in the domain of sociosexuality/risky sexual behavior. For example, Zelin and colleagues (2015) showed that college freshmen overestimate their peers’ sexually permissive attitudes (e.g., “the best sex is with no strings attached”). Research regarding risky sexual behavior norms has established that college students underestimate their peers’ condom use and overestimate their peers’ sexual activity and number of sexual partners (e.g., Barriger & Velez-Blasini, 2013; Lewis et al., 2014). Similar to the findings in the alcohol consumption domain, college students’ own sociosexual attitudes and risky sexual behaviors are significantly related to their perceptions of peers’ attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Lewis et al., 2014). Additionally, those who endorse sociosexual attitudes or a history ofrisky sexual behavior show greater overestimation than their peers (e.g., Zelin et al., 2015).

Findings with college men in the SAB domain have also demonstrated misperceptions of both attitudinal and behavioral norms. For instance, participants overestimate peers’ rape- supportive attitudes (e.g., Boyd-Rogers et al., 2022; Dardis et al., 2015; Loh et al., 2005) as well as peers’ engagement in contact SAB (Dardis et al., 2015; Hackman et al., 2017). Parallel to findings from the alcohol consumption and sociosexuality/risky sexual behavior domains, the magnitude of this overestimation is related to risk for contact SAB, such that men at relatively higher risk for SAB show greater overestimation of positive peer attitudes toward SAB (Boyd- Rogers et al., 2022; Dardis et al., 2015) and peer engagement in contact SAB (Dardis et al., 2015; Edwards & Vogel, 2015).

However, it is currently unknown whether college men misperceive their peers’ engagement in noncontact SAB and whether these misperceptions are related to an individual’s own history of both contact and noncontact offenses. Koss and colleagues (2007) developed a ten-item measure to assess noncontact sexual offenses, and Malamuth and colleagues (2021) recently administered a modified version of this measure to a large sample of undergraduates. Malamuth and colleagues (2021) demonstrated that engagement in noncontact offenses correlated moderately with all assessed SAB risk factors, including hostile masculinity, impersonal sexual behavior, peer pressure, pornography use, attendance at parties, psychopathology, and adolescent delinquency. Moreover, engagement in noncontact and contact offenses correlated strongly, suggesting the theoretical and empirical utility of incorporating perpetration of noncontact offenses into SAB-related research, particularly given the low rates of contact offenses. Thus, assessing potential misperceptions of noncontact SAB and evaluating the extent to which these misperceptions are related to an individual’s history of both contact and noncontact SAB are important contributions to understanding the profile of and risk factors for SAB among undergraduates.

The Present Study

In sum, the empirical literature indicates that college men overperceive their peers’ attitudes and behaviors in the domains of SAB, heavy episodic drinking, and sociosexuality/risky sexual behavior. Moreover, misperception magnitude for attitudinal and behavioral norms within these domains is related to one’s own engagement in contact SAB, heavy episodic drinking, and sociosexuality/risky sexual behavior. The current work aims to replicate and extend this work within a large sample of college men, to address the overlap between alcohol consumption and these behaviors by examining normative misperceptions for alcohol-specific SAB, and to examine both contact and noncontact SAB as potential correlates of normative misperceptions. Examined attitudes and proclivities include sociosexual attitudes, rape-supportive attitudes, alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes, and rape and force proclivity. Examined behaviors include sociosexual behaviors, risky sexual behavior, contact SAB using general and alcohol tactics, noncontact SAB, and alcohol-specific consensual sex and dating behavior.

Relative to existing work, the current study provides a more comprehensive description of SAB-related social norms and uses a large sample drawn from two large state universities in different regions of the United States with demographic differences in their student bodies to enhance the generalizability of the findings. Combining the data across two universities also allows the magnitude of observed effects to be more readily compared than if they were derived from separate studies. We specifically assess the role of an alcohol context in these relations by differentiating general and alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes, as well as alcohol-specific and general SAB tactics, and by including additional measures of alcohol consumption while engaging in consensual sexual and dating behavior. The current works builds on existing literature by examining normative misperceptions of rape and force proclivity, alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes, alcohol-specific consensual sex and dating behavior, alcohol-specific SAB tactics, and noncontact SAB. On the basis of prior literature, we expect to find 1) over perception of all assessed variables; 2) that those reporting a history of contact (and perhaps noncontact) SAB perpetration will show greater endorsement ofrisk-related variables compared to those reporting no SAB history; and 3) that those reporting a history of contact (and perhaps noncontact) SAB perpetration will show greater misestimation of the TCM than those reporting no history of SAB perpetration. We anticipate that the findings and a comparison of the relative magnitude of effects will provide guidance on the most appropriate prevention targets for normative feedback strategies within the SAB domain. This is important information as SAB prevention programs have already begun to incorporate normative feedback (e.g., Berkowitz, 2010; Gidycz et al., 2011; Orchowski et al., 2018; Thompson et al., 2021).

Methods

Participants

Participants were 567 out of 804 undergraduates who identified as male at two large public universities in the United States (The University oflowa and Arizona State University) and who received partial course credit for completing an online study (see Supplemental Table A for site-specific descriptive statistics). Participants in the final sample of 567 met four criteria:(1) they completed the survey (94.90% of larger sample); (2) they were 18 to 24 years old (97.01% of larger sample); (3) they reported being sexually attracted to women (95.65% of larger sample); and (4) they reported lifetime sexual contact with a woman (78.36% of larger sample). The average age of participants in the final sample was 19.17 years (SD = 1.29). Regarding racial identity, 76.47% identified as White, 9.80% as Asian, 4.28% as Multiracial, 3.03% as African American, and 5.35% as other. Roughly fifteen percent of the sample (14.70%) identified as Hispanic/Latinx.

Procedure

College men selected the online study for partial credit in their introductory psychology course and read a consent letter online. They completed a battery of questionnaires in the order listed below related to sexual behavior and alcohol consumption, which took no more than 60 minutes. Participants then read a debriefing statement and viewed a list of local resources. Approval for the current project was obtained from the Institutional Review Boards of The University of Iowa and Arizona State University.

Measures

Participant Background

Participants reported demographic characteristics (i.e., age, race, ethnicity, and gender), whether they were sexually attracted to women, and whether they had ever had sexual contact with women.

Alcohol Consumption Questions

Participants reported the number of days they consumed alcohol in a typical week, how many drinks they had on a typical drinking day, and how often in a typical month they consumed five or more drinks. These items are comparable to the three alcohol-use items on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test that have shown evidence of strong reliability and validity (Bush et al., 1998).

General Rape-Supportive Attitudes (Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance - Short Form)

The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance- Short Form scale is a 17-item questionnaire (plus three filler items) that assesses rape-supportive attitudes (e.g., many women secretly desire to be raped; rape happens when a man’s sex drive gets out of control) with good evidence of reliability and content, construct, and face validity (Payne et al., 1999). Participants responded on a 7-point Likert scale anchored by not at all agree (1) and very much agree (7). We dropped one alcohol- specific item when computing the average response (a= .890). We also assessed normative perceptions by asking participants a set of parallel questions using the same response scale with the following instructions, “Previously we asked you about your own attitudes regarding the following behaviors. In this section, we want to you to report on the attitudes of the typical college male. For each item below indicate how much you think the typical college male would agree with each statement.”

Alcohol-specific Rape-Supportive Attitudes

Alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes were assessed with 14 items that were drawn from existing scales in the literature that showed strong internal consistency, strong reliability, and strong convergent, discriminative, and face validity (Bumby, 1996; Burgess, 2007; Jacques- Tiura et al., 2007; Payne et al., 1999). All items were scored on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from not at all agree (1) and very much agree (7). Sample items include: “Women drink alcohol to show that they are sexually available.” Note that the one alcohol-specific item from the IRMA-SF was included when computing the average response (a= .935). Normative perception was assessed by asking participants to indicate how much the typical college male would agree or disagree with each statement.

Attraction to Sexual Aggression

Two items assessed sexual aggression proclivity, which were examined separately in analyses (adapted from Malamuth, 1989). Both items have shown discriminant and construct validity in the literature (Malamuth, 1989). Both items were scored on a O to 100 scale that indicated the likelihood of engaging in each of the items. The instructions read, “If you could be assured that no one would know and that you could in no way be punished for the following acts, how likely, if at all, would you be to commit such acts?” Participants respond to the items “Rape” and “Forcing a female to do something sexual that she didn’t want to do.” Participants then responded to parallel questions about the TCM.

Sociosexual Attitudes

Sociosexual attitudes were assessed with 15 items from Bailey et al. (2000), who found evidence of the scale’s construct and face validity. All items, some of which were reversed- scored, were scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Sample items include “It is better not to have sexual relations until you are married” and “Sex without love is ok.” The average response was used as a summary score (a= .834). Participants then answered parallel questions about the TCM

Sociosexual Behaviors

Sociosexual behaviors were assessed using 7 items that inquired about the frequency of specific consensual unrestricted sexual behaviors. Four items were adapted from Bailey et al. (2000) to refer to consensual sexual encounters with women (e.g., number of women with whom the participant had consensual sexual intercourse just once). These items showed evidence of construct and face validity (Bailey et al., 2000). Three additional items drafted by the authors assessed frequency of “hookups” in the last year, the number of women with whom participants had consensual sexual intercourse in their lifetime, and the number of women with whom participants had sex only one time in the last year. All items were scored on a 7-point frequency scale (e.g., 1 = none, 2 = 1 to 2, 3 = 3 to 5, 7 = 20 or more). The average response was used as a summary score (a= .877). Participants then reported on the parallel behaviors of the TCM.

Alcohol and Consensual Dating Behavior

Two items assessed the frequency of alcohol consumption on a date and when engaging in consensual sexual intercourse (Abbey et al., 1998). Response options range from “0 = never” to “5 = nearly every time or every time.” Parallel questions were asked about the TCM

Sexual Experiences Survey- Perpetration (SES)

The SES is a 31-item self-report measure of noncontact and contact SAB which has shown adequate reliability and validity (Koss et al., 2007). Participants indicated the number of times (0, 1, 2, 3 or more) they engaged in 10 noncontact behaviors over the past year. Parallel questions were asked about the TCM Sample noncontact items included “I took photos or videotapes of someone while they were undressing, were nude, or were having sex, without their consent” and “I showed someone the private areas of my body (ex. Butt, penis) without their consent.” See Supplemental Table B for descriptive statistics related to endorsement of each noncontact SAB item.

To assess contact SAB, participants indicated the number of times (0, 1, 2, 3 or more) they engaged in each of 3 contact behaviors without consent over the past year. The 3 contact behaviors were unwanted touching; having oral, vaginal, or anal sex; and attempting to have oral, vaginal, or anal sex. Note that SES (Koss et al., 2007) asks separately about oral, vaginal, and anal sex, but most researchers in practice collapse across responses to these categories, given their low endorsement rates. Thus, we collapsed across these categories from the outset to decrease the length of the scale and survey. The frequency of engaging in the 3 contact behaviors was assessed using the 5 original short-form tactics (i.e., applying verbal pressure such as telling lies, showing displeasure, taking advantage when someone was drunk or “out of it”, threatening physical harm, using force) and 2 additional alcohol-related tactics taken from the long form version of the measure (Item G: “Serving someone high alcohol context drinks when they appeared to be regular strength drinks until they were too intoxicated (drunk) to give consent or stop what was happening.” and Item I: “Encouraging and pressuring someone to drink alcohol until they were too intoxicated (drunk) to give consent or stop what was happening.”). In total, 3 of the 7 tactics involved the use of alcohol. Parallel questions were asked about the TCM In our analyses, we distinguished between alcohol and non-alcohol tactics when examining effects of Perspective and SES group.

We also scored the SES trichotomously, separating the sample into men who responded negatively to all items (82.4%; n = 467), men who endorsed only noncontact offenses (10.1%; n = 57), and men who endorsed contact offenses or both types of offenses (7.4%; n = 42). Note that very few participants reported contact but no noncontact SAB, so this group could not be examined separately (e.g., only 12 individuals). We refer to this predictor variable as “SES Group” in the results. Three of the men classified as either perpetrating noncontact or contact offenses indicated that they directed their behavior toward men only. These participants were dropped from the analyses given our focus on male-initiated SAB toward women.

We dichotomized those endorsing any contact SAB versus those who endorsed no history of contact SAB. We further distinguished those endorsing a history of contact SAB by computing a variable that distinguished use of non-alcohol tactics, and another variable that distinguished use of alcohol tactics. We used these as dependent variables in our analyses.

Risky Sexual Behavior

Participants reported how often they engaged in 8 risky sexual behaviors over the last year (e.g., had sex without protection against pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections; had sex with someone just met that day). The scale showed evidence of convergent validity (Treat et al., 2021). Response options were never, 1–2, 3–5, 6–9, 10–14, 15–19, and 20 or more. Responses were scored on a scale from 1 (never) to 7 (20 or more). Internal consistency reliability was adequate for the risky sexual behavior scale (a= .774). We then asked participants to report on risky sexual behavior for the TCM.

Analytic Plan

Only analyses related to our hypotheses of interest are reported in the main text, but full- factorial combinations of Perspective and SES Group effects on each outcome of interest are reported in the supplemental materials (see Supplemental Results). Below, we first examine the main effect of perspective for each outcome of interest (addressing hypothesis 1) to determine if normative misperception is observed. The first planned contrast (addressing hypothesis 2) compared the self variables for those reporting no SAB history to those reporting a history of only noncontact SAB or to those reporting a history of contact SAB in order to assess whether those with a history of contact (and perhaps non-contact) SAB report more problematic SAB- related attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities. The second planned contrast (addressing hypothesis 3) compared the TCM variables for those reporting a history of either contact or noncontact SAB to those reporting no SAB history in order to assess whether those with a history of contact (and perhaps non-contact) SAB showed greater overestimation of the TCM’s problematic SAB- related attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities relative to those with no SAB history. Note that rather than using a source of normative data obtained from previous research, the current paper uses the large sample of participants in the current study as the source of normative data with which we can compare the TCM ratings. In other words, actual peer engagement in SAB is derived from the self-reports of SAB in this sample, and misperception reflects the discrepancy between actual peer engagement and perceived peer engagement in SAB. Examining the association between self SAB history and TCM ratings is statistically equivalent to looking at the association between self SAB history and misperception because the value for misperception is simply the TCM rating minus the same value for all participants in the sample. Thus, misperception correlates perfectly with participants’ normative ratings.

In Figure 1 and Supplemental Figures IA –lJ, the dashed line represents the average response from the self perspective, so that the TCM mean for each SES group can be compared to this line as a way of representing the magnitude of misperception of the social norm. All effect sizes were converted to Cohen’s d values, using conversion methods of Bornstein et al. (2009). Note that SES Group effects could not be evaluated for SES Self ratings because of overlap in the predictor and criterion variables, so SES Group was examined only as a predictor of SES TCM. Observed two-tailed power analyses using G*Power revealed that power to detect moderate effects (d = 50) exceeded .80 for each of the three primary hypotheses of interests (Faul et al., 2007). Moderate or larger effects were expected based on prior work on misperceptions of peers’ attitudes and behaviors in three domains (e.g., Dotson et al., 2015; Miller & Prentice, 2016).

Figure 1:

Effects of Sexual Offense History and Perspective on Sociosexual Behavior and Rape Proclivity.

Results

Sample Description

Supplemental Table A describes the sample. The two sites contributing to our sample did show some significant demographic differences. The Southwestern sample had significantly more Hispanic and Asian participants (and fewer Caucasian participants) than the Midwestern sample (see Supplemental Table A for site specific differences in descriptive statistics). However, drawing from two large state universities in different regions of the United States bolsters our confidence in the generalizability of these findings. Supplemental Table A also denotes significant site-specific differences in outcome variables (all differences d < .40).

On average, the sample endorsed low levels of rape-supportive attitudes, endorsed moderate levels of unrestricted sociosexual attitudes, and reported engaging in unrestricted sexual behavior with 1–5 persons in the last year. Participants reported consuming alcohol a little more than once in a typical week, consuming almost four drinks on a typical drinking day, and binge drinking almost three days in a typical month. Some form of contact or noncontact SAB perpetration was reported at least once in the last year by 16.3% of the sample, with 10.1% reporting engagement in noncontact SAB (but not contact SAB) and 7.4% reporting a history of contact SAB (and potentially noncontact SAB). At least one risky sexual behavior in the past year was reported by 70.7% of the sample. Missing data were rare and never exceeded 1% of the sample.

Perspective and SES Effects on General and Alcohol-specific Attitudes and Behaviors

We report below only statistically significant results for our three hypotheses of interest. Normative misperception effect sizes (addressing hypothesis 1) for each of the outcome variables are presented in Table 1. Effect sizes for the Self and TCM versions of outcome variables as a function of SES risk group (addressing hypotheses 2 and 3) are presented in Supplemental Tables C and D. Figure 1 depicts two prototypical effects of Perspective and SES group on Sociosexual Behavior and Rape Proclivity. Parallel figures for all other outcome variables can be found in Supplemental Figures IA – lJ.

Table 1.

Summary of effects sizes (d values) for Perspective effect (Self versus Typical College Male) on Sex and Alcohol-related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Proclivities

Variables	Effect Size
Sociosexual behavior	0.817
Sociosexual attitudes	0.972
Risky sexual behavior	1.161
General rape-supportive attitudes	0.997
Alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes	1.019
Rape proclivity	1.161
Force proclivity	1.207
Alcohol consumption frequency when on date	1.579
Alcohol consumption frequency when engaging in consensual sex	1.347
Noncontact sexual aggression	0.785
Contact sexual aggression with alcohol tactics	0.954
Contact sexual aggression with non-alcohol tactics	0.932

Note. All differences

Do College Men Exhibit Normative Overestimation of their Peers’ Sex and Alcohol-related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Proclivities? (Hypothesis 1)

College men greatly overperceived the TCM’s sociosexual behavior, F(l, 562) = 93.609, p < .001, d = .817, and sociosexual attitudes, F(l, 562) = 132.567, p < .001, d = .972. Participants also strongly overperceived the TCM’s engagement in risky sexual behavior, F(l, 561) = 188.955, p < .001, d= 1.161. Further, men markedly overperceived the TCM’s endorsement of general rape-supportive attitudes, F(l, 563) = 139.450, p < .001, d = .997, and alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes, F(l, 563) = 146.361, p < .001, d = 1.019. Substantial over perception was also evident for rape proclivity, F(l, 563) = 189.831, p < .001, d = 1.161, and force proclivity, F(l, 563) = 205.166, p < .001, d= 1.207. Undergraduate men also markedly overperceived the TCM’s frequency of consuming alcohol while on a date, F(l, 563) = 351.376, p < .001, d= 1.579, and during consensual sex, F(l, 498) = 225.986, p < .001, d= 1.347. Finally, college men substantially overperceived the TCM’s engagement in noncontact sexual offenses, x²(1) = 460.720, p < .001, d= .785, contact offenses using alcohol tactics, x²(1) = 412.260, p < .001, d= .954, and contact offenses using non-alcohol tactics, x²(1) = 389.367, p < .001, d=. 932.

Do College Men with SAB Perpetration History Show Greater Self Endorsement of Sex and Alcohol-related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Proclivities? (Hypothesis 2)

Compared to those reporting no history of SAB, those endorsing a history of contact SAB reported markedly more engagement in risky sexual behavior, t(562) = 10.065, p < .001, d = .850; moderately greater engagement in sociosexual behavior, t(563) = 5.334, p < .001, d= .449; and moderately more frequent alcohol consumption during consensual dating behavior t(563) = 4.215, p < .001, d= .358, and alcohol consumption during consensual sex, t(500) = 5.527, p < .001, d =.496. Further, those who endorsed a history of contact SAB, compared to those endorsing no SAB history, reported moderately more general and alcohol-specific rape- supportive attitudes, ts(563) = 6.053, 7.385, p < .001, ds = .510, .621; they also showed moderately more rape proclivity, t(563) = 7.963, p < .001, d = .670, and forced sexual contact proclivity, t(563) = 7.118, p < .001, d= .602. Finally, the contact SAB history group reported somewhat greater endorsement of sociosexual attitudes compared to the no SAB history group, t(563) = 3.107, p < .01, d= .263.

Planned-contrasts revealed that, compared to those reporting no history of SAB, those endorsing a history of noncontact SAB reported moderately greater endorsement of rape proclivity, t(563) = 6.508, p < .001, d= .549 and forced sexual contact proclivity, t(563) = 8.330, p < .001, d = .703. Men with a history of noncontact SAB also reported somewhat greater endorsement of sociosexual attitudes, t(563) = 2.773, p < .01, d =.230, general rape-supportive attitudes, t(563) = 4.003, p < .001, ds =.339, and alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes, t(563) = 4.093, p < .001, d = .346, compared to those reporting no SAB history. Men reporting noncontact SAB history also reported somewhat greater frequency of consuming alcohol while on a date, t(563) = 1.985, p < .05, d =.168, compared to those reporting no SAB history.

Do College Men with SAB Perpetration History Show Greater Perceptions of TCM’s Sex and Alcohol-related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Proclivities? (Hypothesis 3)

Those endorsing contact SAB history (relative to the no SAB history group) showed moderately greater overestimation of the TCM’s engagement in noncontact SAB, x²(1) = 4.470, p < .05, d= .372, and risky sexual behavior, t(562) = 3.686, p < .001, d= .314. Those endorsing a history of contact SAB (compared to the no history of SAB group) also showed somewhat to moderately greater overestimation of the TCM’s history of contact SAB perpetration using non- alcohol tactics, x²(1) = 8.310, p < .01, d= .505, and alcohol-specific tactics, x²(1) = 6.914, p < .01, d = .46 l. Additionally, men endorsing a history of contact SAB showed slightly greater overestimation of the frequency with which the TCM consumes alcohol on a date compared to those endorsing no SAB history, t(563) = 2.495, p < .05, d = .211. Unexpectedly, those reporting no history of SAB overestimated the TCM’s sociosexual attitudes somewhat more than those reporting a history of contact SAB, t(562) = −2.025, p < .05, d= −.168.

Planned-contrasts revealed that, compared to those reporting no history of SAB, those endorsing a history of noncontact SAB showed moderately greater overestimation of the TCM’s alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes, t(563) = 4.638, p < .001, d = .392, and slightly greater overestimation of the TCM’s engagement in contact SAB using non-alcohol tactics, x²(1) = 4.115, p < .05, d = .184. Further, compared to men endorsing no history of SAB, those endorsing a history of noncontact SAB also overestimated to a slightly greater extent the TCM’s general rape-supportive attitudes, t(563) = 3.641, p < .001, d= .307, rape proclivity, t(563) = 4.250, p < .001, d = .358, forced sexual contact proclivity, t(563) = 3.809, p < .001, d = .320, and the frequency with which the TCM consumes alcohol on a date, t(563) = 2.091, p < .05, d =.180.

Discussion

The current study aimed to characterize misperceptions of peers’ alcohol and sex-related attitudes, proclivities, and behaviors related to SAB, as well as to determine whether men reporting a history of contact SAB or noncontact SAB showed greater overperceptions (higher estimates for the TCM) than their peers. Overall, we found that (a) college men overperceived all of their peers’ alcohol- and sex-related attitudes, proclivities, and behaviors; (b) a history of contact perpetration correlated with self versions of all risk variables; (c) a history of noncontact perpetration correlated with several risk variables; and (d) a history of contact or noncontact SAB was linked less strongly and more variably to TCM versions of risk variables. Below we discuss the primary findings related to our three overarching hypotheses as well as study limitations, future research directions, and prevention implications.

Do College Men Exhibit Normative Overestimation of their Peers’ Sex- and Alcohol- related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Proclivities?

The current study identified the SAB-related attitudes, proclivities, and behaviors that were particularly overperceived by a large sample of college men for the purpose of identifying targets of future prevention programs. Notably, college men markedly overperceived TCM characteristics for all assessed variables, with Cohen’s dvalues ranging from .79 to 1.58. This robust set of findings is illustrated for Sociosexual Behavior and Rape Proclivity in Figure 1, where the average TCM responses of the three SES groups can be compared to the dashed line depicting the average response from the self perspective for both variables (see Supplemental Figures lA–lJ for the analogous figures for the other variables of interest). Believing that one’s peers approve of and engage in high-risk behavior to a far greater degree than one’s peers actually do could create an environment in which high risk men believe themselves to be more socially justified in holding problematic attitudes and engaging in high-risk behaviors (Jacques-Tiura et al., 2015). Further, for lower risk men, these misperceptions may provide a potential barrier to bystander intervention, secondary to concerns about potential negative social evaluations (e.g., Fabiano et al., 2003; Gidycz et al., 2011).

These findings underscore and extend the existing literature on college student misperceptions in the sex and alcohol-related sex domains, and they suggest the importance of assessing and considering both general and alcohol-specific aspects of relevant attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities (e.g., Bohner et al., 2010; Dardis et al., 2015; Lewis et al., 2014; Swartout, 2013, Thompson et al., 2015). A robust literature indicates that peer influences inform many college students’ behaviors in domains such as alcohol, risky sexual behavior, and SAB (e.g., Berkowitz, 2010; Lewis et al., 2010; Perkins et al., 2005; Swartout, 2013; Thompson et al., 2015). Thus, these findings highlight the potential utility of personalized normative feedback approaches, which have been found to reduce both normative misperceptions of drinking and actual drinking behavior among college students (e.g., Dotson et al., 2015). Further, three preliminary prevention efforts for reducing SAB perpetration among college men have incorporated normative feedback components in their prevention design and have shown promising initial results, as discussed in more detail below (Gidycz et al., 2011; Orchowski et al., 2016; Thompson et al., 2021).

Do College Men with SAB Perpetration History Show Greater Self Endorsement of Sex- and Alcohol-related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Proclivities?

Planned contrasts were used to compare self data for those who reported no history of SAB with those who reported a history of contact SAB or a history of only noncontact SAB. Notably, engagement in impersonal sex and risky sexual behavior were linked moderately to strongly with contact SAB but very weakly with noncontact SAB. In contrast, attitudinal and SAB proclivity variables were linked to a more similar degree to both contact and noncontact SAB, with most associations being moderate or small-to-moderate in magnitude. Finally, alcohol consumption on dates and during consensual sex was associated moderately with contact SAB but very weakly with noncontact SAB.

Overall, these findings are consistent with a large body of work demonstrating that contact SAB is related to numerous proximal risk factors (and all assessed risk factors in the current study), such as impersonal sexual behaviors and attitudes, rape-supportive attitudes, rape proclivity, and alcohol consumption when dating and having consensual sex (e.g., Spencer et al., 2022; Malamuth & Hald, 2017; Malamuth et al., 2021). In addition, in the current study, noncontact SAB was related to a subset of these variables that are more attitudinal or proclivity- based, rather than behavioral, including sociosexual attitudes, rape-supportive attitudes, and SAB proclivity measures. In the only other study to our knowledge to examine noncontact SAB, Malamuth et al. (2021) reported moderate-magnitude associations of noncontact SAB with a measure that combined attitudinal and behavioral aspects of impersonal sex as well as with hostile masculinity (which subsumes rape-supportive attitudes). Thus, future research may profitably examine whether impersonal sex and risky sexual behavior are less tied to noncontact SAB than to contact SAB. Malamuth et al. (2021) also reported that both contact and noncontact offenses were related to several other risk factors identified in the Confluence Model, including attending parties where alcohol is available, extreme pornography viewing, peer influences, psychopathology, and adolescent delinquency. The current work builds on this important foundation by separating those who engaged in any contact SAB from those who engaged only in noncontact SAB, allowing us to isolate potential correlates of noncontact SAB in the absence of contact offenses. In sum, the current findings, in concert with those reported by Malamuth et al. (2021), suggest that SAB exists along a spectrum that includes not only coercive and aggressive sexual contact, but also noncontact offenses, and that engagement in non-contact offenses is associated with several established and novel risk factors for contact SAB.

Do College Men with SAB Perpetration History Show Greater Perceptions of TCM’s Sex- and Alcohol-related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Proclivities?

A second set of planned contrasts examined misperception of TCM norms for those who reported no history of contact or noncontact SAB with those who reported a history of contact or only noncontact SAB. Overall, those reporting a history of either contact SAB or noncontact SAB tended to overperceive college men’s SAB-related attitudes, proclivities, and behaviors to a small-to-moderate degree relative to peers who reported no SAB history. There were three exceptions that were inconsistent with our hypothesis: perception of sociosexual behavior and alcohol consumption frequency during consensual sex were similarly (and markedly) overperceived regardless of SAB history, and those reporting a history of contact SAB overestimated the TCM’s sociosexual attitudes somewhat less than those reporting no SAB history. Overall, the magnitude of SES-group differences between those reporting contact SAB vs. no SAB history and those reporting noncontact SAB vs. no SAB history on TCM variables was smaller than the magnitude of SES-group differences between parallel contrasts on Self variables reported in the previous section. Generally, however, perceived norms were related reliably to at least one of the two contrasts, regardless of whether variables were alcohol-specific or not. From the perspective of high-risk men, greater over perception may facilitate perceived justifiability of both contact and noncontact SAB (e.g., Berkowitz, 2010; Swartout, 2013).

Importantly, the over perception of contact and noncontact SAB norms was greater for those reporting a contact SAB history than those reporting a noncontact SAB history. This finding not only replicates prior work linking a self-reported contact SAB history with greater overestimation of peer engagement in contact SAB (Dardis et al., 2015; Edwards & Vogel, 2015) but also demonstrates an analogous but weaker pattern of findings for noncontact SAB. Interestingly, those reporting contact offenses showed only negligibly greater over perception of attitudinal and SAB-proclivity indices than their peers reporting no offenses and in one case with sociosexual attitudes even showed somewhat less overestimation than those reporting no SAB history, which is inconsistent with prior findings and our hypotheses (e.g., Boyd-Rogers et al., 2022; Dardis et al., 2015). Those reporting noncontact offenses showed small-to-moderate over perception of attitudinal and SAB-proclivity indices, however, when compared to peers reporting no SAB offenses. Overall, a reported history of noncontact SAB is associated with both Self and normative rape-supportive attitudes and SAB proclivities, demonstrating that engagement in noncontact SAB is clearly linked to (but not behavioral variables) well-established risk factors for contact SAB that are incorporated in the prevailing Confluence Model of sexual aggression (Abbey et al., 2011; Malamuth et al., 2021; Malamuth & Hald, 2017; Swartout, 2013; Thompson et al., 2015). Future research should continue to evaluate whether certain aspects of the Confluence Model may be differentially related to noncontact and contact offenses. Additionally, future prevention work should evaluate whether personalized normative feedback is a useful intervention for both high-risk populations.

Limitations

It will be important for future work to recruit a more diverse sample, as the current sample was predominantly non-Hispanic (85%) and White (76%). A more diverse sample would provide an opportunity to examine the generalizability of these findings to racial and ethnic minority groups, to non-traditional or older college students, and to LGBTQIA+ identifying college students. Oversampling approaches may be beneficial in future research to systematically recruit men from different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. The current study only recruited college students due to our focus on sexual assault occurring on college campuses. However, it is unclear from the current study whether these patterns of results would generalize to other populations and contexts, such as non-college populations.

The current study did not use attention checks to identify participants who provided poor quality data. We would expect that the inclusion of poor-quality data in the current context would, if anything, weaken the demonstrated effects. Nonetheless, we have no way to determine how the results may have been impacted by participants who provided poor quality data.

The current study used noncontact SAB items developed by Koss et al. (2007) and recently administered by Malamuth et al. (2021). Although this preliminary pool of items is promising, we are pleased to hear that substantial revisions are underway (personal communication: Koss, 8/1/2021), as more contemporary items assessing engagement in noncontact offenses may prove to be helpful indicators of SAB risk among college students.

Finally, we did not examine normative misperceptions of alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking as normative misperceptions of both variables are well-established, and we wanted to reduce the length of the survey where possible (Monk & Heim, 2014). Future work should also consider examining misperceptions of alcohol-specific measures ofrisky sexual behaviors.

Future Research Directions

As noted above, future research should evaluate whether proximal risk factors identified in the Confluence Model (Abbey et al., 2011; Malamuth et al., 2021; Malamuth & Hald, 2017; Swartout, 2013; Thompson et al., 2015), as well as potential normative misperceptions of relevant peer attitudes and behaviors, are linked differentially to perpetration of noncontact and contact offenses. Such work will help to determine the replicability of the current findings and whether they extent to other proximal risk factors, such as misperception of sexual intent (Abbey et al., 2011). Future research should also examine the extent to which the Confluence Model generalizes to noncontact sexual offenses. Ideally, such research would be conducted longitudinally, using both panel and ecological momentary assessment methods, so that prospective predictors of engagement in noncontact offenses can be evaluated as they have been for contact offenses (e.g., Spencer et al., 2022). This work would provide another avenue for the identification of potential prevention targets.

Research examining the stability of SAB-related norms over time, across varying contexts, and as a function ofrelevant states (e.g., alcohol consumption, sexual arousal) also would greatly refine our understanding and potential modification of peer-related influences on SAB. Additionally, future research should seek to examine the effect of changing the proximity of the reference group of interest (e.g., TCM vs. a TCM who is sexually active and drinks), to determine if a more proximal reference group may be more or less prone to misperception. Finally, as detailed in the next section, the potential utility of personalized normative feedback approaches for reducing the incidence of both contact and noncontact offenses merits continued evaluation (Gidycz et al., 2011; Orchowski et al., 2016; Thompson et al., 2021).

Prevention Implications

This study was designed in part to characterize the relative magnitude of college men’s misperceived norms for alcohol-related SAB attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities within a large sample, in an effort to identify particularly important targets of prevention. Surprisingly, all assessed variables were misperceived to a strong or very strong degree, including newly identified misperceived norms for noncontact offenses, alcohol-specific SAB tactics, SAB proclivity, and alcohol-specific rape-supportive attitudes and consensual sex and dating behavior. Additionally, college men who reported a history of either contact or noncontact SAB showed greater misperceptions than their peers on several (but not all) alcohol-specific SAB attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities. These findings underscore the interrelatedness of SAB, heavy episodic drinking, and risky sexual behavior, which readily could be targeted simultaneously in prevention programs, and identify a broader range of attitudes and behaviors that could be targeted via normative feedback.

The current findings highlight the relevance of both primary and secondary prevention efforts with college men, and personalized normative feedback approaches merit considerable additional research. The provision of normative feedback about the TCM or the “typical college female” has already proven useful in the domains of heavy episodic drinking, risky sexual behavior, and bystander intervention among college students (e.g., Dotson et al., 2015; Miller & Prentice, 2016; Salazar et al., 2014). A recent call to action has implored scientists to integrate social norm strategies into SAB prevention efforts (Orchowski et al., 2020). Initial studies targeting SAB perpetration in part with normative feedback have shown effects on college men’s overestimation of their peers’ problematic attitudes in addition to at least a temporary reduction in men’s own problematic attitudes in some studies (Gidycz et al., 2011; Orchowski et al., 2016; Salazar et al., 2014; 2018; Thompson et al., 2021; Zounlome & Wong, 2019). In future implementation of personalized normative feedback, participants could be provided with a bar graph depicting their own average score, their score for the TCM, as well as an average score from a large sample of undergraduate men. Participants could then be guided to make two key comparisons: first by comparing their TCM ratings to the actual average peer ratings, and then by comparing their own ratings to the actual average peer ratings. Providing personalized normative feedback in a computerized fashion may facilitate addressing the large number of attitudes, behaviors, and proclivities that merit feedback, reduce the potential defensiveness of higher-risk men (Malamuth et al., 2018), and enhance the disseminability of this approach (see Thompson et al., 2021 and Salazar et al., 2014 as examples).