Rape prevention: Methodological problems and new directions

Abstract

Interventions targeting males and aimed at the primary prevention of rape are reviewed. Because the causes of rape are not clearly known, primary prevention efforts are hampered. Moreover, etiological accounts of rape have largely ignored situational variables, Situation × Person interactions, and the development of an appropriate taxonomy of rapists. Psychometrically adequate dependent measures of rape proclivity have yet to be developed. Moreover, most existing rape prevention research fails to distinguish between statistically significant and clinically significant results, and fails to assess the durability of any treatment effects. In addition, most programs are based on the problematic assumption that changes in attitudes will result in changes in actual incidence of rape. Finally, issues such as the need to assess whether other prosocial changes occur (e.g., a decrease in potential to abuse children) and the need to evaluate the specific mechanisms of change, as well as the need to assess possible iatrogenic effects of these efforts, are discussed.