Clinton-Lisell Virginia, Anderson RaeAnn E
University of North Dakota.
J Sex Res. 2025 Feb;62(2):276-289. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2024.2341426. Epub 2024 Apr 17.
The wording of self-report instruments likely affects its responses; however, there has been very little inquiry into the topic. The purpose of this study was to examine how items in a sexual assault experiences questionnaire varied based on pronouns (first person or second person) and order (sexual-behavior or coercive-tactic first) affected responses. College students ( = 979) were randomly assigned in a 2 by 2 between-subjects experiment to experimental versions of the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES). The findings indicated that the condition with second-person pronouns and coercive-tactic first phrasing had the highest rate of disclosure. Based on reading time results, respondents may have engaged more in processing of items with second-person pronouns or coercive-tactic first phrasing. Moreover, respondents in coercive-tactic first conditions reported more mental effort was required in answering compared to respondents in the sexual-behavior first conditions. There was no effect of condition on negative affect and very little change in negative affect from completing the SES. Overall, the results support the use of second-person pronouns and coercive-tactic first phrasing in sexual assault self-report instruments to support disclosure of this stigmatized crime. Future research should examine how these findings may be extended to other self-report instruments.
自我报告工具的措辞可能会影响其回答；然而，对这一主题的研究非常少。本研究的目的是考察性侵犯经历问卷中的项目如何因代词（第一人称或第二人称）和顺序（性行为或强制策略在前）的不同而影响回答。979名大学生被随机分配到一项2×2组间实验中，接受《性经历调查》（SES）的不同实验版本。研究结果表明，第二人称代词且强制策略在前的表述方式下，披露率最高。根据阅读时间结果，受访者可能对第二人称代词或强制策略在前的表述方式的项目进行了更多的处理。此外，与性行为在前的情况相比，强制策略在前的受访者表示回答问题时需要更多的脑力。条件对负面影响没有作用，完成SES后负面影响变化很小。总体而言，结果支持在性侵犯自我报告工具中使用第二人称代词和强制策略在前的表述方式，以促进对这种受污名化犯罪的披露。未来的研究应考察这些发现如何扩展到其他自我报告工具。
