Incoming College Students’ Bystander Behaviors to Prevent Sexual Violence

Evaluations of bystander intervention educa­ tion programs demonstrate that this approach results in students’ increased willingness to intervene in prosocial ways to prevent sexual violence (e.g., Moynihan, Banyard, Arnold, Eckstein, & Stapleton, 2010). These programs often focus on first­year college students, though theories and research on student development raise questions about when students are best trained as bystanders (Bennett, Banyard, & Garnhart, 2014). While some authors argue that bystander intervention is more effective for older secondary school students (Polanin, Espelage, & Pignott, 2012), other researchers highlight how traditional­ aged students in their early years of college are focused on forming new relationships, a stage of growth that may make the bystander role of confronting or challenging peers difficult (e.g., Bowman, 2010). Bystander intervention has generally been treated as a monolithic construct, where individuals are encouraged to step in and “do something” to prevent sexual violence. Viewing bystander intervention in this way is more applicable in the field of social psychology, where it has been studied in situations that are typically fairly straightforward, such as witnessing a crime or a health emergency. In the field of sexual violence, however, the bystander situation is more complicated. Sexual violence occurs on a continuum that includes different types of opportunities for individuals to take action, ranging from emergency situations to low­risk opportunities to address sexist behavior that supports sexual violence (Stout, 1991). In higher education, bystander programs have been critiqued for emphasizing how to intervene without first helping students recognize when they can intervene. McMahon and Banyard’s (2012) conceptual model includes a “continuum of opportunity” for preventing sexual violence on campus in both reactive and proactive ways. High-risk bystander opportunities occur directly before a sexual assault where there is a high level of harm facing the potential victim, such as witnessing a potential perpetrator giving alcohol to render someone incapacitated in order to have sex with that individual (McMahon & Banyard, 2012). In low-risk opportunities, derogative attitudes toward