Bystander Training as a Best Practice
Advisor Information
Jay Irwin
Location
Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library
Presentation Type
Poster
Start Date
4-3-2016 12:45 PM
End Date
4-3-2016 2:15 PM
Abstract
Researchers and educators have concluded that many health and safety issues encountered by college students are not only individual problems but also social in nature (Brown, Banyard, Moynihan, 2014). Appreciation of this relation can help to facilitate unique intervention strategies that take advantage of social perceptions and behaviors. One of these strategies is to communicate pro social norms with the hope students will challenge their own attitudes so they will fit to what they believe is normative (Perkins & Craig, 2011). Communicating pro social norms works because often peers are first responders as well as witnesses to health and safety issues. Furthermore, peers are often informal helpers in that they are confided in when problems arise between other peers which gives them a great opportunity to provide support. Sequentially, the pro social behaviors then will hopefully affect the positions of others and move the overall social norms of the group. Currently a major health and safety concern on campuses across the nation is power based and sexual violence. This study will address what best practices can be implemented to increase reporting of sexual violence with the long-term goal of eliminating it, more specifically the practice of bystander intervention training on college campuses. This study hopes to address the following questions; will bystander training help increase reporting of power based violence, increase the knowledge of the student population on power based violence, and increase the willingness of the student population to intervene in a bystander scenario? In other words, will this implementation (bystander training) be the appropriate individual level piece of the larger comprehensive approach to addressing sexual violence?
Bystander Training as a Best Practice
Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library
Researchers and educators have concluded that many health and safety issues encountered by college students are not only individual problems but also social in nature (Brown, Banyard, Moynihan, 2014). Appreciation of this relation can help to facilitate unique intervention strategies that take advantage of social perceptions and behaviors. One of these strategies is to communicate pro social norms with the hope students will challenge their own attitudes so they will fit to what they believe is normative (Perkins & Craig, 2011). Communicating pro social norms works because often peers are first responders as well as witnesses to health and safety issues. Furthermore, peers are often informal helpers in that they are confided in when problems arise between other peers which gives them a great opportunity to provide support. Sequentially, the pro social behaviors then will hopefully affect the positions of others and move the overall social norms of the group. Currently a major health and safety concern on campuses across the nation is power based and sexual violence. This study will address what best practices can be implemented to increase reporting of sexual violence with the long-term goal of eliminating it, more specifically the practice of bystander intervention training on college campuses. This study hopes to address the following questions; will bystander training help increase reporting of power based violence, increase the knowledge of the student population on power based violence, and increase the willingness of the student population to intervene in a bystander scenario? In other words, will this implementation (bystander training) be the appropriate individual level piece of the larger comprehensive approach to addressing sexual violence?