Overcoming Barriers to Bystander Intervention Among High School Students: Program Implications for the Prevention of Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse

Introduction: Bystander intervention approaches have been demonstrated to be effective tools in the prevention of sexual assault and relationship abuse. However, the majority of programming and research on this topic has been conducted with adults. Current attempts are underway to adapt empirically supported bystander programming for high school-aged youth. Previous research suggests that before educating people on becoming positive bystanders, there must be an understanding of the barriers present for individuals that may make intervening difficult. This presentation will include the results of a study that examined the types of barriers most often reported by high school-aged youth. Lastly, there will be a discussion of how an understanding these barriers can be used to create effective, evidence-based bystander programming for high school audiences.

Methods: Over 3,000 students from 25 different high schools in New England answered questions about specific factors that make it difficult to intervene in situations of sexual assault and relationship abuse. They also completed a series of measures that are commonly used in prevention research such as: knowledge related to the topic, rape myth acceptance, positive bystander intention, victim empathy, and perception of school climate. This was done to see if there were meaningful correlations between perception of barriers and other important predictors of positive bystander intervention.

Results: High school students reported a number of barriers to positive bystander intervention. Some of these barriers are ones commonly seen in research with adult participants, such as: “I could get physically hurt by helping” and “It may not be serious enough for me to have to help”. Other reported barriers are more unique to the experience of being a high school student, such as: “People will think I am trying to get involved in drama if I help”, “Helping could make people made at me”, and “I might get made fun of if I help”. Furthermore, some important correlations were detected. Students who reported higher levels of barrier perception were more likely to endorse rape myths, demonstrate a lower level of knowledge related to sexual assault and dating violence, and show less intention of being a positive bystander, and report poorer perceptions of school climate.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates that high school students perceive a number of barriers that may make them less likely to effectively intervene when witnessing an incident of sexual assault or dating violence and that one’s perception of these barriers may be influenced by other factors predictive of bystander behavior. Some of these barriers seem to be unique to the experience of being a high school student. Therefore, when creating bystander prevention programming for high school youth, important adaptations need to be considered that reflect these perceived barriers. Furthermore, programming should aim to address some of these important correlates (increasing knowledge; decreasing rape myths) as doing so may render perceived barrier less insurmountable. This presentation will highlight some specific examples of how this data can shape a bystander related prevention program for high school youth.