Who sees opportunity to help? A prospective study on adolescents’ detection of intervention opportunities in situations of sexual and dating violence

Abstract

Adolescent bystanders (i.e., witnesses to violence) can prevent sexual and dating violence among their peers and create a safer social environment if they detect the opportunity. The current study prospectively examined the association of demographic (i.e., age, gender, sexual orientation), psychosocial (i.e., knowledge, rape myth acceptance, victim empathy), and behavioral (i.e., binge drinking) factors with bystander opportunity detection in situations regarding sexual and dating violence among adolescents (N = 1,322, 50.3% girls/women, 88.9% White/non-Hispanic, 85.9% heterosexual, 18.6% free/reduced lunch, aged 13–19). Sexual minority girls, adolescents with greater victim empathy, and binge drinkers were more likely to detect bystander opportunity than heterosexual girls, boys, adolescents with less victim empathy, and nonbinge drinkers. These findings suggest that current theoretical frameworks used to understand bystander opportunity and action may be enhanced by the consideration of demographic and personal characteristics.

Keywords

Adolescence bystander dating violence interpersonal violence sexual assault

Rates of sexual and dating violence among adolescents are alarmingly high (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014), with recent research suggesting that 20–35% of adolescents experience psychological violence, 10–25% experience physical violence (Kann et al., 2014; Stonard et al., 2014), up to 26% of adolescent girls are victims of sexual assault (Finkelhor et al., 2014), and 23–72%, depending on gender and sexual orientation, are victims of sexual harassment (Mitchell et al., 2014). During adolescence, peers become more salient and adolescents spend increasing amounts of time building social relationships with friends and other peers (Connolly et al., 2004; Rubin et al., 2006). Thus, adolescents are often witnesses to sexual and dating violence among peers, an experience known as being a bystander (Banyard & Moynihan, 2011). Research suggests that the presence of a bystander may reduce the likelihood that violence will occur (Fold & Robinson, 1998). Yet, research has documented that bystanders may not recognize the opportunity to intervene (Banyard, 2011). Indeed, one key aspect of bystander experience is noticing the situation of sexual or dating violence in which one has the opportunity to intervene (Burn, 2009; Latané & Darley, 1970). As interventions increasingly move to online and other technology-based implementation, a greater understanding of the factors that are associated with bystander opportunity detection will allow sexual and dating violence preventionists to screen participants and individually tailor programming. Individual tailoring is more challenging in group-based settings such as schools. Individually tailored programming may lead to more effective programming and safer social environments. Moreover, a better understanding of these associations may help to improve social and interpersonal theories of bystander behavior, particularly regarding opportunity detection. The current article examines the demographic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors associated with bystander opportunity detection among high school students.

Theory and research on bystander opportunity

Research suggests that one third of sexually violent events occur in the presence of a bystander (Lukacena et al., 2019; Planty, 2002) and that bystanders are present in almost two thirds of instances of emotional and physical dating violence victimization (Black et al., 2008; Hamby et al., 2016). As evidenced by this research, bystander opportunity is salient to adolescents, particularly given the high frequency of dating and sexual violence among adolescents. Bystander opportunity can happen in a variety of ways. For example, one bystander opportunity may be hearing someone make a sexist comment. Another opportunity could be seeing someone bring an intoxicated person to a secluded area. Although the risk level of these opportunities is very different, with the sexist comment being low risk and the secluded area being high risk, they are both opportunities for intervention. These two situations present opportunity for primary prevention or intervention before an event takes place (McMahon & Banyard, 2012). Some situations present opportunity for secondary prevention or intervention during an event (McMahon & Banyard, 2012). An example of this opportunity is walking into a situation where an intoxicated person is being assaulted or helping a friend leave an abusive relationship (McMahon & Banyard, 2012). A third type of opportunity can occur when a victim of assault confides in someone after a sexual assault or instance of dating violence has taken place. In this case, the bystander has the opportunity to help the victim (called tertiary prevention; McMahon & Banyard, 2012).

Bystander theory stresses the importance of opportunity detection as the critical first step to bystander intervention. According to Latané and Darley (1970)’s five-step situational model of bystander intervention, bystander intervention begins with Step 1, noticing an event. Burn (2009) applied the situational model to sexual assault prevention, identifying an initial failure to detect the event as a barrier to intervention. According to this model, if bystanders do not detect an event in which intervention is necessary, they cannot intervene (Burn, 2009). Assuming a bystander detects the event (Step 1), the bystander must then (2) identify a situation as risky and in need of intervention, (3) take responsibility for intervention, (4) choose a course of action, and (5) intervene in the situation. The current article focuses on this first step, which to date we know very little about especially within the context of adolescent bystander behavior. Adolescents must both be in a sexual and dating violence situation and notice the situation to report it later as bystander opportunity and to take steps to prevent the violence and/or support the victim. Although there has been research on women’s detection of risk in potential sexual assault situations (Rinehart et al., 2018), no research to date has examined the extent to which adolescents detect sexual and dating violence situations as bystanders and what factors are related to these detection experiences.

Factors associated with bystander behavior

Little research focuses on correlates of bystander opportunity detection; thus, in the following literature review, we review broadly research on correlations of bystander behavior and intentions, much of which has been done with college students. Given that the first step in bystander behavior is noticing the event, correlates of bystander behavior may also be associated with opportunity detection. Correlates of readiness to help, or bystander intentions, may also be associated with detection as one piece of readiness is awareness of sexual and dating violence risk (Banyard et al., 2014).

For example, some demographic factors may be associated with sensitivity to opportunity detection. Although both men and women are bystanders of sexual assault, researchers suggest that women have greater readiness and willingness to intervene (Brown et al., 2014; McMahon, 2010). Along with greater intent to intervene, women also self-report greater actual intervention in situations of both sexual and dating violence (Edwards et al., 2015). This may be due to a greater sensitivity to situations of sexual and dating violence that disproportionately affect girls and women as victims (Basile & Smith, 2011; Breiding et al., 2014; Muñoz-Rivas et al., 2009; Smith et al., 2018). This sensitivity may result in girls also reporting that they detect intervention opportunities.

Sexual orientation may also affect detection of opportunities. Higher levels of sexual and dating violence are reported by sexual minority individuals than heterosexual individuals (Dardis et al., 2015; Hatchel et al., 2018). Because sexual minority individuals report higher levels of interpersonal violence victimization, it is plausible that sexual minority individuals may have more exposure to violence victimization among their peers as well, and thus are more likely to detect intervention opportunities in similar situations than heterosexual individuals.

In the absence of previous research on opportunity detection, one can also use research on adolescents’ social development to make hypotheses. For instance, bystander opportunity may increase as adolescents get older. As adolescents age, they are more often unsupervised (Rubin et al., 2006) and more often engage in sexual and dating relationships (Connolly et al., 2004). In addition, risk factors for sexual and dating violence increase across adolescence, such as alcohol use (Schulenberg & Maggs, 2002). All these factors likely cause adolescents to have increasing bystander opportunity and experience with situations of sexual and dating violence as they get older, which may lead to increased detection of risk situations.

In addition to demographic factors, some psychosocial factors may be associated with noticing both sexual and dating violence intervention opportunities (Jouriles et al., 2016). An individual’s level of rape myth acceptance is associated with both lower intent to intervene and actual intervention as an active bystander. Endorsing rape myths may lower intervention perhaps because these myths make risky situations seem more normal and less problematic. Similarly, less acceptance of rape myths and increased knowledge of what constitutes rape could increase an individual’s opportunity detection because they are more likely to read a social situation as an opportunity for intervention. Similarly, victim empathy has been shown to be associated with intervening (Ahrens & Campbell, 2000). Along these lines, those with greater victim empathy may be more alert and observant due to their greater empathy for others, therefore be more likely to detect an event and label it as an opportunity to intervene.

Behavioral factors such as alcohol use, specifically binge drinking (4/5 or more drinks in a row for women/men), may also be associated with detection of intervention opportunity. Alcohol is the most expansively used substance among adolescents with 17% of high school seniors reportedly getting drunk within a year time frame (Johnston et al., 2015). Binge drinking is a significant factor in many sexual assaults (Krebs et al., 2009) and is a significant risk factor for multiple types of sexual and dating violence perpetration and victimization (Parker et al., 2017; Waterman et al., 2019). In addition, binge drinking has been shown to depress helpful bystander actions (Fleming & Wiersma-Mosley, 2015; Jozkowski et al., 2019; Leone, 2018; Orchowski et al., 2016). As a result, we hypothesize that binge drinking behavior will result in greater opportunity detection because adolescents are in contexts where sexual and dating violence often occur, and thus, they will more often detect opportunities. That said, it is also possible that the pharmacological effects of alcohol which limit the brain’s ability to process cues could also limit adolescents’ ability to detect opportunities, leading to less likelihood of reporting opportunity (Leone, 2018; Steele & Josephs, 1990).

Current article

Most research regarding bystander intervention focuses on correlates of bystander action and/or ways to increase bystander intervention by providing skill sets to respond to sexual assault situations (Banyard et al., 2004). However, to intervene one must first notice the opportunity to do so. Bystander intervention programs to prevent adolescent sexual and dating violence are increasing in popularity. However, the effects of such programs tend to be modest, suggesting more research on bystander behavior could be used to improve these programs (Edwards et al., 2019; Kettrey & Marx, 2019). In addition, bystander research tends to focus on college samples, and more research on bystander intervention among adolescents is needed (Edwards et al., 2019; Kettrey & Marx, 2019). One way to increase the impact of such programs would be to target programming toward adolescents who are already able to detect more opportunity, while focusing training for other students on enhancing their ability to detect opportunity or to lower their thresholds for signaling opportunity. In the current article, we examine the prospective association between demographic (i.e., age, gender, sexual orientation), psychosocial (i.e., knowledge, rape myth acceptance, victim empathy), and behavioral (i.e., binge drinking) factors and subsequent detection of bystander opportunities.

The current article adds to the literature by exploring both sexual and dating violence situations among adolescents, as most bystander literature focuses on sexual violence among college students. By utilizing a prospective design, as opposed to a cross-sectional design, we are able to say more conclusively which factors lead to detection of opportunities for bystander action. We are aware of no study to date which has prospectively examined the association of demographic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors with bystander opportunity detection in situations regarding sexual and dating violence among adolescents.

We hypothesized that older adolescents, heterosexual girls, and sexual minority girls and boys will be more likely to detect bystander opportunity than young adolescents and heterosexual boys. We hypothesize that adolescents with greater knowledge, less rape myth acceptance, and greater victim empathy will be more likely to subsequently report bystander opportunity than adolescents with less knowledge, more rape myth acceptance, and less victim empathy. Finally, we hypothesize that adolescents who binge drank recently will be more likely to report bystander opportunity than adolescents who did not binge drink.

Method

Participants

Participants were 1,322¹ high school students from 13 schools in northern New England who participated in the control arm of a cluster randomized control trial to evaluate a bystander-focused violence prevention curriculum (Edwards et al., 2019). Participants who were part of the treatment arm (n = 2,403) were removed because the treatment may impact adolescents’ attitudes (baseline equivalency between the control and intervention groups is described elsewhere; Edwards et al., 2019). The mean age of participants was 15.8 (range = 13–19, SD = 1.2). Half of students were girls/women (50.3%). The majority of participants identified as White/non-Hispanic (88.9%) and heterosexual (85.9%). Approximately one in five (18.6%) students reported receiving free or reduced lunch, a proxy for poverty. In regard to grade, 28.3% were in 9th, 34.5% were in 10th, 18.6% were in 11th, and 18.6% were in 12th.

After the initial baseline survey, participants responded to a follow-up survey which occurred an average of 97.9 days after the baseline (range = 50–133 days). Regarding attrition, 84.9% of participants completed the follow-up. To determine how participants who completed surveys at follow-up (n = 1,122) differed from participants who did not complete follow-up (n = 200) on baseline variables, 13 Chi-squares and one independent samples t test were performed. Participants who completed follow-up were younger, t(1320) = 3.3, p < .05; more likely to be in earlier grades (χ² = 36.9, p < .05); drank less often, t(1320) = 3.2, p < .05; and were less likely than expected to have an opportunity to ask someone who looked upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help. Groups did not differ on knowledge, rape myth acceptance, victim empathy, race/ethnicity, poverty, gender, sexual orientation, and other bystander opportunity.

Procedures

The principal investigator (PI) sent recruitment e-mails to 220 public schools in northern New England. Whereas all public high schools in New Hampshire were contacted, the principal investigator recruited schools in Massachusetts and Maine that were in counties within a 2-hour drive from the PI’s academic institution. Of the 220 public schools contacted, 26 (11.8%) agreed to participate (4 in Maine, 9 in Massachusetts, and 13 in New Hampshire). Following institutional review board approval, passive parental consent procedures were used for students under 18 years of age. The vast majority (89.7%) of invited students participated in the research. All baseline and follow-up surveys were completed in class via paper-and-pencil surveys. The current article uses data from control schools only.

Measures

Gender and sexual orientation

At baseline, participants responded to the question, “What is your gender?” with the response options of girl/woman (0), boy/man (1), and other (coded as missing). At baseline, participants responded to the question, “What label best describes your sexual orientation?” Response options included heterosexual (straight), gay or lesbian, bisexual, I don’t know, and other. Responses were recoded into heterosexual (0) and sexual minority (1). The response option I don’t know was coded as missing given it was unclear if students did not know because they were questioning their sexual orientation or because they did not understand the question or want to answer it. We then recoded gender and sexual minority into four dummy coded groups: heterosexual boy, heterosexual girl, sexual minority boy, and sexual minority girl.

Knowledge

At baseline, similar to previous outcome evaluation studies (Banyard et al., 2007; Foshee & Langwick, 2010), we created items to assess student’s knowledge about sexual assault and relationship abuse. These items were included based on factual information provided as part of the program (Edwards et al., 2019). Two questions required participants to “circle all that apply,” with each separate response choice representing accuracy of participants’ knowledge. The additional four questions were multiple-choice format, with only one correct answer choice. An example these questions is: “According to the FBI, _______ of rapes that are reported to the police are false reports (the person reporting lied)” with response options being 2%, 10%, 30%, 60%, and I don’t know. In total, there were 14 items used to score the scale, since the first two questions were “circle all that apply” and each response option was thus treated as its own question. Items are scored for accuracy and summed, so that higher scores are indicative of greater knowledge about sexual assault and relationship abuse.

Rape myth acceptance

At baseline, we used a shortened version (Coker, Cook-Craig, Williams, Fisher, Clear, Garcia, et al., 2011; Coker, Cook-Craig, Williams, Fisher, Clear, Hegge, et al., 2011) of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMAS; Payne et al., 1999) to assess students’ agreement with rape myths. The IRMAS-Short Form consists of 6 items (e.g., “When girls are sexually assaulted, it is often because the way they said ‘no’ was unclear.”) Response options range from disagree strongly (1) to agree strongly (4). Factor analyses from the current study suggested that the 6 items represented two distinct factors or subscales: Traditional Gender Expectations (Cronbach’s α= .78) and Rape Denial (Cronbach’s α= .73). Items are summed, so that higher scores on either subscale indicated higher levels of rape myth acceptance.

Victim empathy

At baseline, a measure of victim empathy was created for the current study, based on existing measures (Ahrens & Campbell, 2000; C. A. Smith & Frieze, 2003). The Victim Empathy Scale consists of 3 items (e.g. “I feel that I am able to understand what the victim of relationship abuse and/or sexual assault goes through”). Response options range from disagree strongly (1) to agree strongly (4). Items are summed, such that higher scores indicate higher levels of victim empathy. In the current study, the Cronbach’s α was .79.

Binge drinking

At follow-up, binge drinking was measured with an item taken from the Centers for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Eaton et al., 2012). Participants responded to the question, “During the past month (30 days), on how many days did you have 4 (if you are a female) or 5 (if you are a male) or more drinks in a row within a couple of hours? Response options ranged from I have never drank alcohol to 20 to 31 days. (Note that the question prompt asked about drinking “past month (30 days)”, and the response options included “20 to 31 days”; this was a discrepancy and is a limitation of the measurement.) This measure was recoded into a dichotomous variable, no binge drinking (0), one or more binge drinking days (1) due to low rate of reported binge drinking.

Bystander opportunity detection

At follow-up, participants responded to a measure adapted from Cook-Craig and colleagues (Cook-Craig et al., 2014). The scale included 6 items assessing bystander opportunity and behavior in the past 2 months. Items addressed bystander behavior prior to, during, and after a sexual assault or instance of dating violence. For each item, participants could respond by either indicating how many times they intervened or by choosing “I haven’t been in this situation.” Each of the 6 items was recoded into no opportunity detection (0) if participants report not being in the situation and opportunity detection (1) if the participant reported how many times they intervened. The scenarios were as follows: (1) “Tell someone to stop talking down to, harassing, or messing with someone else,” (2) “Speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of relationship abuse or sexual assault,” (3) “Talk to a friend who was being physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend,” (4) “Ask someone that looked very upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help,” (5) “Speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex with them,” and (6) “Get help for a friend because they had been forced to have sex or were physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend.”

Analysis plan

The current analysis was prospective in that we measured knowledge, rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations and rape denial), and victim empathy at baseline and bystander opportunity detection at follow-up. We measured binge drinking at follow-up since our hypothesis was that adolescents would be more likely to detect opportunities while in binge drinking situations. To report bivariate associations, we completed point biserial correlations between the factors of interest and the six bystander opportunities. Point biserial correlation is a measure of effect size similar to a bivariate correlation but can be used with dichotomous variables (Kornbrot, 2005). To test our hypotheses, we completed six separate logistic regressions, one for each bystander opportunity. In the logistic regressions, we entered age, heterosexual girl, sexual minority boy, sexual minority girl (heterosexual boy was the comparison group), knowledge, rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations and rape denial), victim empathy, and one or more binge drinking days. All logistic regressions included opportunity detection (the corresponding scenario) at baseline as a covariate.

Results

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for main study constructs. Bystander opportunity detection ranged from 11.76% to 59.95%. In general, students reported more opportunity to intervene in less severe/higher frequency type situations rather than more severe/lower frequency type situations.

Table 1.
Descriptive statistics.

Variable Mean (SD)

Age 15.81 (1.18)

Knowledge 9.51 (3.43)

Rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations) 4.04 (1.35)

Rape myth acceptance (rape denial) 6.09 (1.88)

Victim empathy 7.21 (2.17)

%

Heterosexual boy 46.06

Heterosexual girl 40.28

Sexual minority boy 3.98

Sexual minority girl 9.68

One or more binge drinking days 18.87

Bystander opportunity (1) 59.95

Bystander opportunity (2) 23.78

Bystander opportunity (3) 21.77

Bystander opportunity (4) 53.47

Bystander opportunity (5) 13.71

Bystander opportunity (6) 11.76

Note. Percentages are valid. 1 = Tell someone to stop talking down, harassing, or messing with someone; 2 = speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of abuse or assault; 3 = talk to a friend who was being physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend; 4 = ask someone who looked upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help; 5 = speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex; 6 = get help for friend because they’d been forced to have sex or were physically hurt by boyfriend/girlfriend.

p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

Biserial correlations

Older adolescents were more likely than younger adolescents to detect the opportunity to ask someone who looked very upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help (Table 2). Heterosexual boys were less likely than girls and sexual minority adolescents to detect the opportunity to speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of relationship abuse or sexual assault and to ask someone who looked very upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help. Being a heterosexual girl or sexual minority boy were not associated with bystander opportunity detection. Sexual minority girls were more likely than all boys and heterosexual girls to detect all opportunities except speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of relationship abuse or sexual assault.

Table 2.
Biserial correlations with bystander opportunity.

Bystander opportunity 1 2 3 4 5 6

Age .01 .01 .06 .07* .05 .01

Heterosexual boy −.05 −.08* −.06 −.12* −.03 −.03

Heterosexual girl .00 −.04 .02 .06 .00 −.01

Sexual minority boy −.06 −.06 −.04 −.02 −.05 −.04

Sexual minority girl .12* .01 .08 .12* .08 .10

Knowledge .05 .00 −.05 .04 −.11 −.10

Rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations) −.05 .02 .02 −.04 .06 .05

Rape myth acceptance (rape denial) −.03 .02 .07* −.02 .07* .03

Victim empathy .06 .14* .13* .09 .11 .11*

One or more binge drinking days .13* .15* .15* .14* .16* .14***

Note. 1 = tell someone to stop talking down, harassing, or messing with someone; 2 = speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of abuse or assault; 3 = talk to a friend who was being physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend; 4 = ask someone who looked upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help; 5 = speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex; 6 = get help for friend because they’d been forced to have sex or were physically hurt by boyfriend/girlfriend.

p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

Adolescents with greater knowledge were less likely than adolescents with less knowledge to detect the opportunity speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex and to get help for a friend because they had been forced to have sex or were physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend. Gender expectations were not associated with opportunity detection, but adolescents with more rape denial were more likely than adolescents with less rape denial to detect the opportunity to talk to a friend who was being physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend and to speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex. Adolescents with more victim empathy were more likely than adolescents with less victim empathy to detect all bystander opportunities except tell someone to stop talking down to, harassing, or messing with someone else. Adolescents who did not binge drink were less likely than binge drinkers to detect all bystander opportunities.

Logistic regressions

In the logistic regression models, age was associated with detecting the opportunity to ask someone who looked upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help and to speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex (Table 3). For each step up in age, adolescents were 15% and 22% more likely to detect these opportunities, respectively. Heterosexual girls and sexual minority boys did not differ from heterosexual boys. Sexual minority girls were more likely than heterosexual boys to detect all bystander opportunities expect tell someone to stop talking down, harassing, or messing with someone. The odds of sexual minority girls detecting opportunity, compared to heterosexual boys, ranged from 132% more for talk to a friend who was being physical hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend to 479% more for to speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of relationship abuse or sexual assault.

Table 3.
Logistic regression analysis predicting bystander opportunity.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Opportunity detection Odds ratio Odds ratio Odds ratio Odds ratio Odds ratio Odds ratio

Baseline opportunity detection 3.89* 5.14* 5.58* 4.25* 4.58* 9.23*

Age 0.99 1.02 1.11 1.15* 1.22* 1.08

Heterosexual girl 1.04 1.41 1.23 1.26 1.35 1.44

Sexual minority boy 0.48 1.34 0.65 1.14 0.20 0.50

Sexual minority girl 1.80 4.79* 2.32 2.77** 2.42* 2.74

Knowledge 0.97 0.95 0.91 0.98 0.89* 0.87*

Rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations) 0.98 1.21* 1.06 1.00 1.04 1.15

Rape myth acceptance (rape denial) 0.99 1.03 1.05 0.98 1.08 0.96

Victim empathy 1.04 1.10* 1.13** 1.06 1.14* 1.12*

One or more binge drinking days 2.45* 1.89 1.72 1.54* 2.11** 1.82*

Cox and Snell R² .14 .15 .14 .16 .11 .13

Note. 1 = Tell someone to stop talking down, harassing, or messing with someone; 2 = speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of abuse or assault; 3 = talk to a friend who was being physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend; 4 = ask someone who looked upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help; 5 = speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex; 6 = get help for friend because they’d been forced to have sex or were physically hurt by boyfriend/girlfriend.

p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.

For each step up in knowledge, adolescents were 9% less likely to detect the opportunity to talk to a friend who was being physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend, 11% less likely to detect the opportunity to speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex, and 13% less likely to detect the opportunity to get help for a friend because they had been forced to have sex or were physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend. For each step up in rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations), adolescents were 21% more likely to detect the opportunity to speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of relationship abuse or sexual assault. Rape denial was not associated with opportunity detection. For each step up in empathy, adolescents were 10% more likely to detect the opportunity to speak up when you heard someone blaming a victim of relationship abuse or sexual assault, 13% more likely to detect the opportunity to talk to a friend who was being physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend, 14% more likely to detect the opportunity to speak up to someone who was bragging or making excuses for forcing someone to have sex, and 12% more likely to detect the opportunity to get help for a friend because they had been forced to have sex or were physically hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend.

Adolescents who binge drank were more likely than nonbinge drinkers to detect almost all types of bystander opportunity with one exception (talk to a friend who was being physical hurt by a boyfriend/girlfriend). The odds of binge drinking adolescents detecting opportunity, compared to nonbinge drinkers, ranged from 54% more for ask someone who looked upset at a party/dance/sports event if they were okay or needed help to 145% more for tell someone to stop talking down to, harassing, or messing with someone else.

Discussion

To be a positive bystander, an adolescent must first notice an opportunity. The current article prospectively examined factors that are associated with six bystander opportunity detection scenarios related to sexual and dating violence. Although one cannot separate detection from having the opportunity to detect (i.e., some factors may influence actual opportunity, which is necessary to then notice the opportunity), the current findings suggest that some adolescents do appear to be more likely to detect opportunities. Specifically, this article expanded on the literature by identifying sexual minority girls, adolescents with greater empathy, and adolescents who binge drink more frequently as more likely to detect bystander opportunity.

Sexual minority girls were more likely than heterosexual boys to detect almost every type of opportunity. Sexual minority boys and heterosexual girls were no more likely than heterosexual boys to report opportunity. Sexual minority girls, and especially bisexual girls, may have the most opportunity because they are at high risk for sexual and dating violence victimization (Dardis et al., 2015; Hatchel et al., 2018), and thus may be more aware of the signs someone has been victimized (Ahrens & Campbell, 2000) or may be more likely to recognize a situation as risky (Anderson et al., 2017). Their sensitivity to risk may also make them more likely to judge a situation as a risky situation that presents an opportunity for action. That is, they may have a lower threshold for labeling a situation as an opportunity. It is also possible that sexual minority girls are friends with other sexual minority girls who are disproportionately victimized, and thus, there is naturally more of an opportunity to take action. Our findings highlight the importance of the intersecting identities of being a girl and being sexual minority in regard to adolescents’ experiences of witnessed violence.

Opportunity detection increased with age in the case of only two scenarios. Our hypothesis was based on the theory that as adolescents age, they are exposed to an increasing number of higher risk situations due to declining adult supervision, increasing dating and sexual relationships, and increasing alcohol use (Connolly et al., 2004; Rubin et al., 2006; Schulenberg & Maggs, 2002) and that with this increased opportunity would lead to increased detection. It may be that bystander opportunity increases during the transition to adulthood (e.g., moving out of the home), leading to increases in detection. The transition to adulthood was not captured in the current study of high school students. Changes in adult supervision, dating and sexual relationships, and alcohol use are most drastic during this period (Lefkowitz & Gillen, 2005; Maggs Schulenberg & Maggs, 2002). Future research may explore opportunity over a long period, from childhood to young adulthood.

Adolescents with more knowledge were subsequently less likely to detect opportunities in several scenarios. Adolescents with more rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations) were subsequently more likely to detect the opportunity for one scenario. These findings are contrary to hypotheses. However, in retrospect, it may be that adolescents with less knowledge and more rape myth acceptance tend to spend time with other adolescents who share these attributes. Spending time with at-risk peers may present more opportunities for intervention. Indeed, previous research indicates that adolescents tend to be friends with others who are similar on traits like antisocial behavior (Güroğlu et al., 2012). Because lack of knowledge and rape myth acceptance may be associated with sexual and dating violence (Edwards et al., 2011), these adolescents have more opportunity to intervene among their friends who are more likely to be victims and/or perpetrators, leading to more detection of opportunity.

Adolescents with more victim empathy were more likely to subsequently detect the opportunity to intervene in the majority of bystander situations. Whereas lack of knowledge and rape myth acceptance likely represent something about the actual opportunities that adolescents are exposed to, high empathy likely represents adolescents’ ability to detect a bystander opportunity. That is, adolescents who are high in victim empathy may be more attuned to the difficult situations faced by others (perhaps because of their own experiences with victimization), leading to greater reporting of opportunity or a lower threshold for labeling a situation as an opportunity. Programs that build empathy and other social and emotional skills among adolescents, which may begin in childhood (Puerta et al., 2016), are beneficial in multiple domains (e.g., van Noorden et al., 2015) and may contribute to adolescents detection of bystander opportunity and thus, subsequent intervention. Future research using vignette scenarios in a lab setting could extend the current study by examining whether differences in opportunity detection are due to a lower threshold for labeling a situation as risky.

Compared to adolescents who did not binge drink, adolescents who binge drank were more likely to report bystander opportunity in all situations except for one. Most binge drinking occurs in social situations where individuals are around other binge drinking peers (Clapp & Shilington, 2001), and high rates of sexual and dating violence take place in the presence of alcohol (Sheridan & Evans, 2019; Waterman et al., 2019). Although binge drinking within the last 30 days does not mean that each opportunity was presented when an individual was drunk or drinking, it is reasonable to assume that drinking may be involved with the bystander opportunities. Although it is possible that adolescents who binge drink may miss opportunities due to the pharmacological effects of alcohol (Steele & Josephs, 1990), these findings suggest that binge drinking increases detection of opportunity due to the context in which alcohol use typically occurs.

Implications

Our findings have theoretical implications relevant to the study of social and personal relationships. First, our findings highlight the importance of the first step of bystander intervention, noticing the event (Burn, 2009; Latané & Darley, 1970) and document variability in these experiences. Adolescents who encounter sexual and dating violence situations and detect the opportunity may then subsequently act. Consistent with a social–ecological model of adolescent development (Bronfenbrenner, 1992), both intrapersonal and contextual factors impact adolescents’ experiences of bystander opportunity detection (Banyard, 2011). Intrapersonal factors such as victim empathy may result in subsequent bystander opportunity due to adolescents’ own ability to detect situations where they can help and enhance identification of need for help. Factors such as binge drinking may lead to bystander opportunities because of the context in which binge drinking occurs, leading to more opportunity detection. Our findings suggest that despite the pharmacological effects of binge drinking (Leone, 2018; Steele & Josephs, 1990), the context in which drinking occurs may lead to more opportunity detection. Future theoretical models of bystander behavior that include pathways or gateways to this first step, noticing the event, could be enhanced by the inclusion of these various demographic, intrapersonal, and contextual factors.

These findings also have practical implications. Sexual minority girls may be more likely to intervene given they are more likely to pass the barrier of the first step, noticing the event. However, research shows differential effects for heterosexual and sexual minority adolescents such that programs work better for heterosexual students (Coker et al., 2020; Waterman et al., 2020). Thus, it is important that bystander intervention programs targeted toward broader adolescent populations be inclusive toward these students and take steps to adapt programs to meet their identified needs. The issues faced by sexual minority girls and their preferred intervention strategies may differ from boys and heterosexual students especially if girls are not “out” to others and/or worried that certain strategies (e.g., seeking help) could reflect poorly on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other non-heterosexual relationships. This group of students, more likely than others to indicate opportunity, may be particularly in need of bystander skills training to safely respond to the opportunities they report observing. In addition, given we found empathy to be associated with detection, programs that build youth’s social–emotional development (Puerta et al., 2016) may consider evaluating their effects on bystander opportunity detection and bystander behavior as secondary outcomes. Preventionists should consider that adolescents who exhibit some risk factors or risk behavior (i.e., lack of knowledge, rape myth acceptance, and binge drinking) may have more bystander opportunity detection because they are exposed to at-risk peers and contexts where sexual and dating violence occur. Thus, as the prevention field moves toward individually tailored programs delivered via the Internet or other technology, preventionists could screen for and tailor programming for these high-risk students while providing bystander strategies that are safe to use with high-risk peers (e.g., distraction). That said, it is most critically important to reduce adolescent binge drinking in an effort to decrease sexual and dating violence; these two areas of prevention should be integrated with programs that target multiple health risk behaviors (Waterman et al., 2019). Finally, preventionists may consider training adolescents who report less opportunity to detect opportunities that they may have not noticed, as well as training them to change social norms to be intolerant of violence (even if they are not faced with a specific bystander opportunity).

Limitations and future research

The current article’s findings should be considered in light of certain limitations. First, the racial and ethnic diversity of this sample was limited. Future research should explore the correlates of opportunity detection among more diverse samples. Second, although we identified some correlates of bystander opportunity detection, the variance explained with these models was small—it may be that other variables, particularly situations not measured in the current article variables (e.g., presence of peers), have a greater impact on detection. Third, an individual must have bystander opportunity to be able to detect it. It is tempting to conflate with bystander opportunity and detection. However, it is not possible using self-report data to separate opportunity from detection, given an individual must have an opportunity to detect that opportunity and subsequent report that opportunity on a survey. Future research could use experimental/scenario-based methods (e.g., videos) to further understanding of opportunity and detection. Fourth, we asked about binge drinking in the past month and gave 30 days as an example. However, given many months go 31 days, our response options included 31 days. We have no way to knowing how this issue may have impacted the results. Fifth, our measure of sexual orientation was limited such that we excluded youth who answered that they “did not know” their sexual orientation given that we did not know if this meant they were questioning their sexual orientation or if they did not understand the question or did not want to answer it. Future research should use more nuanced measures of sexual orientation. Along these lines, we did not measure the extent to which youth were friends with other youth engaging in high-risk behaviors, which may have helped to explain some of the findings. Finally, the time between the baseline and follow-up surveys ranged for participants between 50 and 133 days. The bystander questions asked about the past 2 months, which means a few participants had follow-up time periods that were 10 days shy of this 2-month period. For these participants, it is possible that opportunities measured using the “past 2 months” time frame counted some opportunities at both baseline and follow-up. Although that it is unlikely that this issue disrupted the results, future research that provides a more consistent and longer separation between data collection time points would be useful to confirm the findings described here.

Conclusions

Adolescents are often encouraged to be positive bystanders against violence, but they can only do so if they encounter an opportunity. The current article showed that sexual minority girls, adolescents with greater empathy, and binge drinkers were more likely to report bystander opportunity than other adolescents. For some opportunities, adolescents with greater rape myth acceptance and adolescents with less knowledge about sexual and dating violence were more likely to report bystander opportunity. Both intrapersonal and context factors contribute to adolescents’ bystander opportunity. Preventionists may need to tailor bystander strategies toward the needs of sexual minority girls and binge drinkers for prevention programming while training other students to detect opportunity.

Variable	Mean (SD)
Age	15.81 (1.18)
Knowledge	9.51 (3.43)
Rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations)	4.04 (1.35)
Rape myth acceptance (rape denial)	6.09 (1.88)
Victim empathy	7.21 (2.17)
	%
Heterosexual boy	46.06
Heterosexual girl	40.28
Sexual minority boy	3.98
Sexual minority girl	9.68
One or more binge drinking days	18.87
Bystander opportunity (1)	59.95
Bystander opportunity (2)	23.78
Bystander opportunity (3)	21.77
Bystander opportunity (4)	53.47
Bystander opportunity (5)	13.71
Bystander opportunity (6)	11.76

Bystander opportunity	1	2	3	4	5	6
Age	.01	.01	.06	.07*	.05	.01
Heterosexual boy	−.05	−.08*	−.06	−.12***	−.03	−.03
Heterosexual girl	.00	−.04	.02	.06	.00	−.01
Sexual minority boy	−.06	−.06	−.04	−.02	−.05	−.04
Sexual minority girl	.12***	.01	.08**	.12***	.08**	.10**
Knowledge	.05	.00	−.05	.04	−.11**	−.10**
Rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations)	−.05	.02	.02	−.04	.06	.05
Rape myth acceptance (rape denial)	−.03	.02	.07*	−.02	.07*	.03
Victim empathy	.06	.14***	.13***	.09**	.11**	.11***
One or more binge drinking days	.13***	.15***	.15***	.14***	.16***	.14***

	1	2	3	4	5	6
Baseline opportunity detection	3.89***	5.14***	5.58***	4.25***	4.58***	9.23***
Age	0.99	1.02	1.11	1.15*	1.22*	1.08
Heterosexual girl	1.04	1.41	1.23	1.26	1.35	1.44
Sexual minority boy	0.48	1.34	0.65	1.14	0.20	0.50
Sexual minority girl	1.80	4.79***	2.32**	2.77**	2.42*	2.74**
Knowledge	0.97	0.95	0.91**	0.98	0.89***	0.87***
Rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations)	0.98	1.21*	1.06	1.00	1.04	1.15
Rape myth acceptance (rape denial)	0.99	1.03	1.05	0.98	1.08	0.96
Victim empathy	1.04	1.10*	1.13**	1.06	1.14*	1.12*
One or more binge drinking days	2.45***	1.89**	1.72	1.54*	2.11**	1.82*
Cox and Snell R²	.14	.15	.14	.16	.11	.13

Footnotes

Authors’ note

The findings and implications presented in this article do not represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this study was provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Grant #R01-CEO02524.

ORCID iD

Emily A. Waterman

Victoria L. Banyard

Open research statement

This research was not pre-registered. The data used in the research cannot be publicly shared but are available upon request. The data can be obtained by emailing katie.edwards@unl.edu. The materials used in the research cannot be publicly shared but are available upon request. The materials can be obtained by emailing katie.edwards@unl.edu.

Note

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	1	2	3	4	5	6
Opportunity detection	Odds ratio	Odds ratio	Odds ratio	Odds ratio	Odds ratio	Odds ratio
Baseline opportunity detection	3.89***	5.14***	5.58***	4.25***	4.58***	9.23***
Age	0.99	1.02	1.11	1.15*	1.22*	1.08
Heterosexual girl	1.04	1.41	1.23	1.26	1.35	1.44
Sexual minority boy	0.48	1.34	0.65	1.14	0.20	0.50
Sexual minority girl	1.80	4.79***	2.32**	2.77**	2.42*	2.74**
Knowledge	0.97	0.95	0.91**	0.98	0.89***	0.87***
Rape myth acceptance (traditional gender expectations)	0.98	1.21*	1.06	1.00	1.04	1.15
Rape myth acceptance (rape denial)	0.99	1.03	1.05	0.98	1.08	0.96
Victim empathy	1.04	1.10*	1.13**	1.06	1.14*	1.12*
One or more binge drinking days	2.45***	1.89**	1.72	1.54*	2.11**	1.82*
Cox and Snell R²	.14	.15	.14	.16	.11	.13