Assistant Professor of Psychology Anandi Ehman and colleagues recently published an article, "Institutional trust and perceived social norms of changes to the Title IX policy predict sexual assault reporting intentions: A mixed methods study," in the Journal of American College Health.
They conducted a study of college students at a large public university in the southeastern US assessing students' knowledge of and attitudes towards Title IX, including recent changes to the policy. Slightly less than a quarter of the sample was familiar with the full purpose of Federal Title IX policy. However, despite this, the majority of students indicated that they believed their peers would have a neutral attitude towards the recent changes to the policy. Regardless of how students believed their peers viewed the policy (i.e., perceived social norms of policy change) individuals who believed that their university systemically responded inappropriately to Title IX incidents were less likely to report someone else’s victimization to the campus Title IX office. Students who endorsed marginalized identities (e.g., BIPOC, LGBTQ+) were more likely to express distrust in their institution to adjudicate Title IX issues effectively. By contrast, participants who believed others supported the changes to the policy were more likely to increase their reporting to the campus’s Title IX under the new Federal policy. Students who believed others did not support the changes to the Federal policy were more likely to decrease their reporting to their campus Title IX office under the new Federal policy. Implications for policy and institutional support of students are discussed.
