Discipline of Psychology, University of Canberra, ACT, Australia.
J Interpers Violence. 2024 Mar;39(5-6):1082-1103. doi: 10.1177/08862605231212177. Epub 2023 Nov 18.
Previous intimate partner violence research and social psychological theory have highlighted that ethnicity and level of harm are both factors that have the potential to influence bystander willingness to intervene in, as well as the acceptance of intimate partner violence between couples. Little research has been conducted on the general willingness of bystanders to intervene in, or the level of acceptance of coercive control. This is the first study to explore whether the likelihood of bystander willingness to intervene is influenced by participant gender, the ethnicity of the couple involved in a hypothetical scenario of coercive control, and by differing levels of abusive behavior. In this study, we also explored the influence of participants' acceptance of coercive control. A semi-experimental design was used, utilizing an online community sample sourced through social media of 346 adult participants across Australia. The participants were randomly allocated to read a fictional coercive control scenario detailing either low or high harm instances of coercive control. Within the online survey the ethnicity of the couple was manipulated with participants' randomly allocated to read a scenario about a couple with the same ethnicity as them (Australian of British or European descent) or a couple with Indian Australian ethnicity. The results showed the participants were significantly more willing to intervene in the coercive control scenario when the couple shared the same ethnicity as them. In response to the low harm scenarios, participants were significantly more accepting of coercive control if the couple were Indian Australian. However, males responding to high harm scenarios were more accepting of coercive control if the couple shared the same ethnic identity as them. The implications from these findings for theory and future bystander intervention programs are discussed.
先前的亲密伴侣暴力研究和社会心理学理论强调，种族和伤害程度都是潜在因素，可能会影响旁观者干预的意愿，以及伴侣之间对亲密伴侣暴力的接受程度。很少有研究关注旁观者干预的普遍意愿或对强制控制的接受程度。这是第一项研究，旨在探讨旁观者是否愿意干预的可能性是否受到参与者性别、涉及强制控制假设场景的情侣的种族以及不同程度的虐待行为的影响。在这项研究中，我们还探讨了参与者对强制控制的接受程度的影响。采用半实验设计，通过社交媒体从澳大利亚的 346 名成年参与者中抽取在线社区样本。参与者被随机分配阅读一个虚构的强制控制场景，详细描述了强制控制的低伤害或高伤害情况。在在线调查中，通过参与者随机分配阅读一个关于具有相同种族（澳大利亚裔英国或欧洲裔）或印度裔澳大利亚裔的伴侣的情景来操纵伴侣的种族。结果表明，当伴侣具有相同种族时，参与者更愿意干预强制控制情景。对于低伤害情况，参与者如果伴侣是印度裔澳大利亚人，则更接受强制控制。然而，如果男性对高伤害情况做出反应，如果伴侣与他们具有相同的种族身份，他们则更接受强制控制。讨论了这些发现对理论和未来旁观者干预计划的意义。
