Abstract
One population that shares both similar and different characteristics with traditional college-age students is the U.S. Military. Similarities include a high concentration of 18- to 26-year-olds dealing with new found independence, peer pressure, and the presence of social norms that support violence and hypermasculinity. Sexual violence is a major public health problem in the United States, and because of the similarities in the age group of college and military populations, the problems regarding sexual violence in both constituencies have been well-documented. In the current pilot study we seek to add to both current knowledge about and promising practices of translating prevention strategies from one target audience to another. We describe how we translated, administered, and evaluated a bystander intervention social marketing campaign focused on sexual assault prevention that had been found to significantly affect attitude change on a college campus for a U.S. Army installation in Europe. In addition to demonstrating the process of translating prevention strategies across target audiences, findings from this pilot study contribute to the evaluation data on the effectiveness of sexual violence prevention strategies implemented with members of the U.S. Military. From our analysis, we see that research participants indicate that the degree to which the images resonate with them and the familiarity of the context (i.e., social self-identification) significantly effect the participants’ personal responsibility for reducing sexual assault, confidence in acting as a bystander, and reported engagement as a bystander.
The overwhelming majority of sexual assault prevention strategies for 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States are developed and evaluated on college and university campuses (e.g., Banyard, Moynihan, & Plante, 2007; Schwartz, DeKeseredy, Tait, & Alvi, 2001). Although many of these prevention efforts are then reproduced and disseminated on other campuses, some are similarly adapted for audiences other than college students (e.g., high school students, general community audiences). Although these other audiences may share similar characteristics (i.e., age or gender) with traditional college populations, prevention educators must make a number of decisions regarding adopting a prevention strategy “as is” or modifying it. The first option assumes the prevention strategy fits their community’s needs and profile. A second strategy is for practitioners to review the existing research on prevention strategies, including programs, social marketing campaigns, and evaluation tools to create their own or modify existing prevention strategies. A third alternative is to have researchers work with community members including practitioners to modify existing prevention strategies to design a prevention strategy specifically for their community. All of these alternatives have advantages and disadvantages, the key decision should be to select prevention efforts that resonate with the intended audience (Potter & Stapleton, 2011). The current study describes the results of one prevention strategy developed for college students that was translated to teach members of a military community how to prevent or intervene in situations where sexual assault is occurring.
One population that shares both similar and different characteristics with traditional college-age students is the U.S. Military. Similarities include a high concentration of 18- to 24-year-olds dealing with new found independence, peer pressure, and the presence of social norms that support violence and hypermasculinity (Turchick & Wilson, 2010). However, the groups are different, too, in that members of the U.S. Military are predominantly male, are employed, not necessarily attending college, and are more racially and ethnically diverse than the general population of U.S. college students (U.S. Government Accountability Office [GAO], 2008).
Sexual violence is a major public health problem in the United States, the problems regarding sexual violence in both college and military populations have been well-documented. Approximately 20% of women were the victim of a sexual assault that occurred when they were attending college (Krebs, Lindquist, Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2009), and these incidence rates are not in decline (Karjane, Fisher, & Cullen, 2005). Findings from a comprehensive review of sexual assault victimization rates among members of the military noted that approximately 9.5% to 33% of servicewomen experience an attempted or completed rape during their service (Turchick & Wilson, 2010). The wide range in sexual assault victimization rates results from official Department of Defense reports, surveys of former soldiers, and anonymous surveys of current soldiers. For soldiers who serve in the military confidentiality following some reporting choices cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, some victims who seek professional services may fear retaliation from their colleagues (Stern, 2011). Although the majority of prevalence studies focus on servicewomen, previous studies indicate that between 1% and 12% of servicemen have experienced an attempted or completed rape during their service (e.g., Kimerling, Gima, Smith, Street, & Frayne, 2007). By comparison, in the general population, 3% to 4% of American men report an attempted or completed rape during adulthood (Elliott, Mok, & Briere, 2004), and 7% of college men report an attempted or completed assault while in college (Banyard, Ward, Cohn, Moorhead, & Walsh, 2007). Exposure to sexual and relationship violence is associated with a multiplicity of negative outcomes, including substance use, depressive symptoms, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (e.g., Brener, McMahon, Warren, & Douglas, 1999). Therefore, there is an urgency to find new prevention tools.
In addition to the negative impact on individual victims, military leaders also emphasize that sexual assault in their ranks disrupts unit cohesion and may have serious repercussions for the missions that these servicewomen and servicemen are required to carry out (Department of Defense [DoD], 2009). In an effort to address the high prevalence rates of sexual assault in the military, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) established the sexual assault prevention and response office (SAPRO) in 2005 which is responsible for sexual violence accountability in all five branches of the U.S. Military. Currently, SAPRO works with the five military branches to develop and administer prevention strategies and victim services that are consistent with DoD guidelines. SAPRO has developed four bystander training programs. The facilitator guides for these programs enable military personnel trained as sexual assault response coordinators (SARCs) or victim advocates (VAs) to administer these programs on their installations (http://www.sapr.mil/). The programs reference posters from the military “My Strength is for Defending” Social Marketing Campaign. Each “My Strength is for Defending” poster features a face of a male soldier and an instruction for the poster viewer. For example, one poster reads, “So when I saw she was drunk, I told my wingman: Ask her when she’s sober.” In this instance the posters are used to supplement the facilitated programs.
As the U.S. Military looks to invest in prevention strategies that are effective and resonate with their target audience, to date, one prevention program, the Navy’s Sexual Assault Victim Intervention (SAVI) has been formally evaluated and published (Kelley, Schwerin, Farrar, & Lane, 2005). The evaluated program, SAVI has two components, a sexual assault prevention program that is used to educate Sailors and an advocacy program for members of the Navy who have been victims of sexual violence. Other than this study, no evaluation data are available on the effectiveness of sexual assault prevention programs or social marketing campaigns in the U.S. Military (GAO, 2008). Importantly, a 2008 GAO report includes a recommendation that the DoD develop a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of its sexual assault prevention and response program. SAPRO has responded to this recommendation in their 2010 Strategic Plan and intends to improve system accountability through data collection and analysis (DoD, 2009).
In the current pilot study we seek to add to both current knowledge about and promising practices of translating prevention strategies from one target audience to another. We describe how we translated, administered, and evaluated a bystander intervention social marketing campaign focused on sexual assault prevention that had been found to significantly impact attitude change on a college campus (Potter, Moynihan, Stapleton, & Banyard, 2009; Potter, Moynihan, & Stapleton, 2011) for a U.S. Army Installation in Europe (USAREUR). In addition to demonstrating the process of translating prevention strategies across target audiences, findings from this pilot study contribute to the limited evaluation data on the effectiveness of sexual violence prevention strategies implemented with members of the U.S. Military.
Utilizing the Bystander in Sexual Violence Prevention
The bystander approach teaches community members how to safely intervene in situations that involve sexual and relationship violence (e.g., Banyard, Moynihan et al., 2007). The efficacy of using a bystander approach is supported by theoretical perspectives and research findings that suggest that sexual and relationship violence will be eliminated only when broader social norms also are addressed and a broader range of audiences are reached (Lisak & Miller, 2002; Schwartz et al., 2001). When community members realize that they have a role to play in ending sexual violence, then the community norms that silence victims and bystanders will change. This research also points to an untapped resource for communities. For example, West and Wandrei (2002) found that informal helpers may play an important and significant role in both preventing victimization and assisting survivors.
Bringing in the Bystander™ Program
The Bringing in the Bystander™ Program has two components, an in-person program: A prevention workshop for establishing a community of responsibility™ and the Know Your Power™ bystander social marketing campaign. A multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of New Hampshire developed, administered, and evaluated both components of the program. The Bringing in the Bystander Program is one of the few programs of its kind that has been evaluated experimentally and shown to be effective in changing attitudes and actual behaviors among a population of traditionally-aged undergraduate men and women (Banyard, Moynihan et al., 2007). Researchers also found that program participants were more likely to improve readiness to change scores as a function of exposure to the prevention program (Banyard, Eckstein, & Moynihan, Banyard, Arnold, Eckstein, & Stapleton, 2010). This bystander framework has been applied to social marketing prevention methods (Potter et al., 2009, 2011).
The program applies a community of responsibility model to teach bystanders how to intervene safely and effectively in cases where sexual and relationship violence may be occurring, have occurred, or are at risk for occurring. Its main message is that “everyone in the community has a role to play in ending violence” (Banyard, Moynihan et al., 2007). Following from that, the program does not approach men as potential perpetrators or women as potential victims. The Bringing in the Bystander in-person program integrates elements from and builds on works by Katz (1995), Berkowitz (2002), and Foubert (2000). Importantly, the bystander approach also fits with programming focusing on risk reduction for groups shown to be at higher risk for sexual assaults (Lonsway et al., 2009) by teaching bystanders safe, appropriate ways to intervene in situations of sexual violence or to prevent these forms of violence before they happen.
In addition to being found to be effective in changing attitudes and behaviors of traditionally-aged men and women undergraduate participants (Banyard, Moynihan et al., 2007), the Bringing in the Bystander in-person program was experimentally evaluated in a variety of undergraduate student subconstituencies such as intercollegiate athletes and Greeks (Moynihan & Banyard, 2008).
Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign
The term social marketing is used to describe the practice of using merchandize marketing techniques for educating audiences on social issues rather than asking audience members to buy the advertised products. In other words, social marketers ask their audience members to consider changing their behavior to support a social cause (Kotler, Roberto, & Lee, 2002). Social marketing campaigns are used routinely to educate specific public audiences on a myriad of issues that range, for example, from HIV/AIDS prevention (Dawson & Hartfield, 1996), the perils of smoking (Hersey et al., 2005), high risk drinking behaviors (e.g., DeJong, 2002) to seat belt use (Clark et al.,1999). Social marketing campaigns can be useful on the college campus where students move from place to place as they take courses, study in the library and common areas, eat in communal dining halls, and generally move around in a relatively limited physical area. Significantly, this environment is similar to those experienced by soldiers living and working on a military installation.
The Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign is composed of 21 images that model active, prosocial bystander behaviors that the target audience members can use in situations where sexual and relationship violence and stalking are occurring, have occurred, or have the potential to occur. Through guided exercises in focus groups, target audience members have contributed valuable insight and feedback to the design and editing phases of this campaign (Potter and Stapleton, 2011). The campaign images and logos have appeared on posters, table tents, bookmarks, postcards, bus wraps, products, and a website. New images are continually developed and customized to be effective in each campaign environment.
The efficacy of the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign has been evaluated three different times during its development. Initially, the campaign, consisting of four images on posters, was piloted and evaluated in two 1st-year residence halls during a 4-week period using a control and experimental group and pretest and posttest instruments (Potter, Stapleton, & Moynihan, 2008). Students who were exposed to the posters had a significantly increased knowledge of prosocial bystander behaviors compared with the students in the control group (Potter et al., 2008).
The following semester, the campaign was administered and evaluated a second time. The redesigned images were posted throughout the campus for a 6-week period. Following the removal of the posters, undergraduate students were invited to participate in a community awareness survey advertised on the university portal. The survey results were compared for students who were and were not exposed to the images. Students who were exposed to the images were significantly more likely to believe that the responsibility of sexual and relationship violence prevention are not solely the responsibility of others (e.g., rape crisis center counselors, police), and they reported an increased willingness to get involved in reducing sexual and relationship violence (Potter et al., 2009, 2011).
Further analysis of data from the second evaluation revealed that the target audience members’ who reported a familiarity with context or situation in the images exhibited a greater willingness to intervene than did individuals who did not report seeing themselves or their friends or have a sense of familiarity with the scene (Potter et al., 2011). We use the term social self-identification to refer to an individual’s ability to see himself or herself and a familiar context in the social marketer’s message (Potter et al., 2011). That is, if the actors and settings portrayed in the social marketing campaign look like the target audience members or their peer group then target audience members are more likely to absorb the campaign message than if the actors and social scene do not look familiar. Previous research on the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns highlight the need for the portrayal of characters, places, and events that are similar to the experiences of target audience members (Agha, 2003; Gilbert, 2005; Pechmann & Reibling, 2006; Potter et al., 2011).
In a third campaign administration and evaluation effort, the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign moved from “a poster campaign” to a “multimedia campaign” as other ways to use the 11.5 × 17 images were developed. For a 6-week period, the university community was saturated with the Know Your Power images appearing in academic and residence hall buildings, on the campus cluster computers, bookmarks, full-side bus wraps, table tents on every table in every campus dining hall, and a website. In addition, collateral products including water bottles, gym bags, buttons, and flashlights featuring the campaign logo and website address were distributed. Our findings demonstrated that this concentrated dissemination of campaign images in multiple formats increased participants’ reports that they were actually involved in reducing sexual and relationship violence and stalking (Potter, in press). An examination of the data found no evidence of backlash. That is, exposure to the campaign did neither decrease target audience members’ empathy to the problems of sexual and relationship violence and stalking nor decrease their willingness to take action to reduce these types of violence (Potter, in press).
In the current study, we describe the translation, administration, and evaluation of the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign for a USAREUR post. Soldiers were exposed to the campaign images in the form of posters and table tents for a 6-week pilot period in one U.S. Military installation.
Hypotheses
In this pilot study on a military installation, we hypothesized that exposure to the Know Your Power images would increase USAREUR soldiers’ (aged 18 to 26) knowledge of the bystander role. Furthermore, target audience members, soldiers aged 18 to 26 on the installation who identified with the images, compared with those who did not identify with the images would
report a greater awareness of their role in reducing sexual assault;
report greater confidence in acting as a prosocial bystander when sexual assault is about to occur, is occurring or has occurred;
be more likely to report acting as a bystander during the 6-week campaign period.
Research Design
Participants
We used a posttest design to examine whether the translated Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign would increase soldiers’ responsibility regarding their role in reducing sexual assault, increase soldier’s confidence in acting as a bystander, and increase the likelihood that soldiers would report acting as a bystander. Since many soldiers transition on and off the post for deployment and various assignments, we were not able to use a pretest/posttest design as we did not know if soldiers who were on the post 2 weeks prior to the dissemination of the campaign would be on the post 8 weeks following the administration of the pretest.
One hundred fifty-five soldiers who lived on the installation where the social marketing campaign was disseminated were tasked by their commander to complete an online survey 3 days after the removal of the posters and table tents. These soldiers were identified by their commander as being on the installation when the campaign was disseminated. Although 155 soldiers were tasked to complete the survey in following university human subject protocol, only those soldiers who consented to allow their results to be used for research purposes by answering yes to the question “I agree to allow my answers to be used for research purposes” were included in this analysis.
The target audience for this intervention was soldiers living in the barracks (residence halls) on the USAREUR. The soldiers who lived in the U.S. Army barracks were predominantly male, younger, and were not married. The mean age of the participants was 26.4 (SD = 6.4), 83% of the participants were male, and 91% of the participants were active duty soldiers. Forty-five percent of the participants completed or attended high school, 35% completed some college, and 20% were college graduates or had some graduate education. Eighteen percent identified as Hispanic or Latino, 59% identified as White, 18% identified as Black, and 6% identified as Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islander, or Asian. Finally, 87% of the participants reported that they had previously attended training or classes on sexual assault and 13% reported that they had not. In 2009, 90% of service members received annual training on sexual assault prevention (Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2009).
Procedure
Image translation
Translating the Know Your Power images from a college setting to an army installation posed both challenges and opportunities. The first step in translating the images was to show the images that we designed for the college setting to a group of U.S. Army soldiers and civilians employed on an installation in Europe. Written survey and oral focus-group feedback were solicited from focus group participants for redesigning the images to fit this specific target population. The members of the focus group were composed of soldiers from a different U.S. Army post in the same country in Europe. These focus group members were invited to participate in a discussion regarding the translation of the images following their participation in sexual violence bystander prevention facilitator training in Frankfurt, Germany (Potter & Moynihan, 2011).
The survey and focus group data were reviewed by the team of UNH researchers and USAREUR personnel. We designed mock-up images, based on the campus scenes from the original Know Your Power images, but translated to a military setting by using photos of military personnel engaging in their “typical” daily activities. Following the development of the images, we piloted a four-image Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign on a USAREUR Installation featuring actors modeling prosocial bystander behaviors to prevent sexual assault, safely intervening before a sexual assault, and being an ally to survivors after a sexual assault. The scenarios on the posters used place and context familiar to soldiers. That is, the content of each of the four images matched the campaign focused on educating soldiers about the continuum of violence and thus aimed at reducing sexual assault in the army. Unlike the My Strength is for Defending materials that feature the face of a soldier or soldiers the Know Your Power images feature soldiers working together to help a victim before, after, or during a sexual assault.
Description of the images
In the four images, actors model ways that bystanders can intervene when sexual violence is occurring, has the potential to occur, or has occurred. The scenarios featured on the four posters were determined using the feedback from the soldiers who participated in the focus groups and through discussions with leaders of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office in Europe. The members of the target audience, soldiers residing in the U.S. Army barracks engage in a social scene that is comparable with college students residing in residence halls. On college campuses, a minority of men commits the majority of sexual assaults and they use alcohol to commit these crimes (Lisak & Miller, 2002). As women comprise the majority of victims of sexual assault in the military and alcohol is widely used to facilitate these rapes, two of the images highlight how alcohol is used by perpetrators to commit sexual assault. On each image, there is a statement reinforcing the power of bystanders to prevent and reduce sexual violence. These tag lines are similar to the ones used with the original Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign images that were developed and evaluated on a college campus (Potter et al., 2009, 2011).
One of the four campaign images depict bystanders sitting in a bar identifying a situation where sexual violence has the potential to occur. The bystanders identify the situation and discuss that it is inappropriate to use alcohol as a way to have sex with a “girl.” This scenario highlights how a bystander can intervene when they see alcohol about to be used to facilitate an unwanted sexual experience. The tagline states “Alcohol is the #1 date rape drug. Don’t let anyone use alcohol to commit sexual assault.” Two other images in the series portray bystanders intervening following the occurrence of sexual assault. One of these images depicts three separate frames with three different friends listening and caring for others who have experienced sexual violence. Two of the victims are women, and one of the victims is a man. The bystanders offer words of support to the victims and identify and label the violence that has occurred. The tag line on this image states “Support a friend. Your support encourages victims of violence to seek help.” Another takes place in a lounge on a military installation where four friends are having a serious discussion about their friend (not present), who was assaulted the previous night. The friends work together to make a plan to approach and help the friend. The tag line on this image states “Sexual abuse is everyone’s problem. Intervene when you see it or hear it.” In a fourth image, a soldier, whose face is not identifiable in the image, is bragging to two men and women at a dining facility table on how easy it was for him to have sex with a woman in his barracks. One of the men at the table then confirms that the soldier had sex with a woman who was drunk. The third man labels his friend’s behavior as rape. The tag line on this image states “Speak up when you hear stories that glorify sexual violence. Your responses can make a difference.”
Campaign dissemination
The four images described above appeared on 11.5″ × 17″ posters hung throughout the installation (e.g., dining facility, common areas including hallways, common restrooms, barrack hallways, workout, laundry, and mail areas). In addition, the images were reduced and printed on two sided 8″ × 5″ stand-alone table tents and placed in all of the dining facilities on the installation. Twice a week, a soldier on the installation checked all posters and table tents, replaced damaged or missing ones. All campaign materials were removed at the end of the 6-week period.
Measures
McMahon, Postmus, and Koenick (2011) have noted that because the bystander approach to sexual violence prevention is a relatively new field, researchers must continue to work on the reliability and validity of the measures and resulting modifications in an effort to accurately assess the experience of the participants. The Stages of Change measure used in this study features two modifications of the original Stages of Change measure and have been applied in previous research focusing on evaluation for the pilot project conducted with the U.S. Army (Potter, in press; Potter & Moynihan, 2011).
Stages of Change III
Three “stage of change” variables were used to measure participants’ readiness to engage in bystander behaviors in relation to preventing sexual assault (Potter & Moynihan, 2011). Modeled on the work of Prochaska and DeClemente’s stages-of-change model of health behavior change (see Grimley, Prochaska, Velicer, Blais, & DiClemente, 1994 for a detailed description of this model), the original scale was developed by Banyard, Plante, and Moynihan (2005). The original scale was made up of three subscales that assess the magnitude of change that participant’s expressed readiness to engage: (a) Precontemplation, (b) Contemplation, and (c) Action. Banyard et al. (2010) applied this stages-of-change (readiness-to-change) model to sexual and relationship violence outcomes. The Stages of Change measure used in the current study consists of four items in each subscale rather than the three items used in the previous research (Banyard et al., 2010; Potter et al., 2009). The decision to increase each of the three Stages of Change scales from three to four items reflects previous research findings indicating that some of the items used in the original scale would make more sense as separate items (Potter et al., 2011). For instance, one of the items previously used in the Precontemplation Stages of Change scale stated, “There isn’t much need for me to think about sexual assault on campus. That’s the job of the crisis center.” In recent research, we have split this item into two items: (a) “There isn’t much need for me to think about sexual abuse on this Military installation,” and (b) “Doing something about sexual abuse is solely the job of the SARC/UVA/D-SARC.”
In addition to the increase of one item per subscale in this study, we used a shorter version of the Stages of Change scale originally developed by Banyard, Plante, and Moynihan (2005). As noted above, the images and the evaluation for U.S. Army focused on prevention of sexual assault only, rather than on both sexual assault and relationship violence. For that reason, we removed from the Stages of Change scale all items not specifically related to sexual assault. On each of the four-item subscales, participants responded using a 5-point scale (1 = not at all true and 5 = very much true). These revised Stages of Change scales have been used in exactly the same way in previous research (Potter, in press; Potter & Moynihan, 2011).
The Precontemplation subscale assessed participants’ awareness of their role in prevention of sexual assault on the installation. For example, one of the four sexual assault items on the Precontemplation subscale states, “I don’t think there is much I can do about sexual assault on the installation.” A lower score indicates the participant’s greater knowledge about their role in preventing sexual assault on their installation. The Cronbach’s alpha for the Precontemplation subscale was .78 (M = 9.6, SD = 3.7) for this sample.
The Contemplation subscale assessed the participant’s willingness to get involved in reducing sexual assault. For example, one of the four sexual assault items on the Contemplation subscale states, “Sometimes I think I should learn more about sexual assault.” A higher score indicated the greater the willingness of the participant to get involved. The Cronbach’s alpha on the Contemplation subscale was .35 (M = 11.8, SD = 7.6) for this sample.
The Action subscale assessed whether participants have taken action to prevent sexual assault. One of the four sexual assault items on the Action subscale states, “I am actively involved in projects to deal with sexual assault on the installation.” The Cronbach’s alpha on the Action subscale was .81 (M = 9.1, SD = 15.9) for this sample.
Bystander Efficacy Scale
The updated scale used in the present analysis is composed of 16 statements assessing the participant’s confidence in performing bystander behaviors (Banyard, 2008). Two of the four new items were used in the survey were, “Speak up to someone who is making excuses for forcing someone to have sex with them” and “Speak up to someone who is making excuses for having sex with someone who is unable to give full consent.” The two items that were not used pertain to intimate partner violence were, “Speak up to someone making excuses for using force in a relationship” and “Speak up to someone who is calling their partner names or swearing at them” (Banyard & Moynihan, 2011; Moynihan et al., 2010). The agreement with USAREUR stated the images in the campaign could not focus on relationship violence as this is under the purview of another military office rather than SAPRO. Respondents rate their confidence to perform the behaviors on a scale from 0% (they cannot do) to 100% (very certain they can do). For example, “Speak up to someone who is making excuses for having sex with someone who is unable to give consent.” The mean across all 16 items becomes the total score used. The Cronbach’s alpha for this sample was .97. This scale was used in a recent assessment of the Bringing in the Bystander In-Person Prevention Program on a different USAREUR post (Potter & Moynihan, 2011).
Reported Bystander Behavior Scale
After the soldiers completed the stage of change and bystander efficacy, they were shown the four campaign images and asked how many times in the past 6 weeks they had stepped in to help someone in a situation similar to the ones that they just were shown. The answers were then collapsed into a dichotomous variable: never acting as a bystander was coded 0 and acting as a bystander one or more times was coded 1.
Social Self-Identification Measures
Using scenarios that are familiar to target audience members or situations that reproduce the context and people they see may convince target audience members to pay greater attention to the message and, in the case of the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign images, take on bystander roles (Potter, in press). Five statements were used to assess the soldier’s self-identification and participants responded to these questions by answering a Likert-type question, strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree. The five statements are (a) “The images depict realistic situations,” (b) “I have witnessed similar situations,” (c) “The people in the images look like people that I am likely to see,” (d) “I can see myself saying similar things to what the bystanders in the posters are saying,” and (e) “I can see myself doing similar things to what the bystanders in the posters are doing.”
Results
We present the results in two parts. First, we compare the outcomes on the stage of change and bystander efficacy measures for soldiers who saw and did not see the images. Second, we compare the stage of change measures, bystander efficacy measures, and reported bystander behaviors for three groups of soldiers: for those who reported identifying with the images, those who reported not identifying, and those who were undecided regarding their identification with the images.
Exposure to Campaign Images
After completing the demographic, stage of change, bystander efficacy and bystander behavior questions, survey participants were shown pictures of the four images used during the 6-week pilot study and asked if they had seen these images. Seventy-eight percent (97) of the soldiers reported seeing the images, and 22% (67) reported that they did not. We compared survey results for those who reported seeing and those who reported not seeing the images. Using a t test, we found no significant difference in the average age of the two groups. We used a chi-square test to determine the two groups did not vary significantly by education level and race. However, the sex differences of these two groups is significant, χ2(1, N = 124) = 6.60, p < .05. Eighty-eight percent of the soldiers who reported seeing the images were male and 12% were female. Alternately, 6% of the soldiers who did not report seeing the images were male and 33% were female. In addition, the difference in previous training on sexual assault between these two groups is significant, χ2(1, N = 124) = 4.75, p < .05. Eight-five percent of the soldiers who saw the images reported participating in a training class focused on sexual assault prevention, whereas 100% of the soldiers who did not see the images had participated in such training.
Using a t test, we compared the mean Precontemplation Stage of Change scale score for the soldiers who reported seeing the images and the soldiers who did not. We found that the scores of those soldiers who saw the images (M = 9.12, SD = 3.35) were less likely (p < .01) to state that the prevention of sexual assault was the responsibility of others compared with the scores of those soldiers who did not report seeing the images (M = 11.23, SD = 4.57). The Cohen’s d of .53 indicates that there is medium effect size. Thus, a low precontemplation score indicates that the soldiers who saw the images indicated that they saw themselves as having a role to play in preventing sexual assault. There was not a significant difference in the contemplation, action, and bystander efficacy scores for the two groups. Importantly, however, 38% of the soldiers who saw the images reported that they had stepped in to help someone in a similar situation. Only 12% of the soldiers who did not see the images reported intervening. The difference in responses from the two groups was significant χ2(1, N = 94) = 6.49, p < .01.
Identification with the Campaign Images
The 97 participants who reported that they saw the images were asked a series of social self-identification questions to assess the extent to which the four images resonated with their experiences (see Table 1). We compared the demographic characteristics (age, sex, race, education level, and previous sexual assault training) of the soldiers who reported identifying with the images and those who reported not identifying with the images for each social self-identification measure. There were no significant differences between the social self-identification items and the demographic characteristics with the exception of sex and the social self-identification item “I can see myself doing similar things to what the bystanders in the posters are doing.” Fifty-seven percent of the male soldiers agreed with this statement compared with 25% of the female soldiers. This difference was significant, χ2(1, N = 97) = 4.18, p < .05.
Social Self-Identification Measures for Soldiers Who Were Exposed to Campaign Images
Bystander attitude outcomes and social self-identification items. After establishing that there were few significant demographic differences between the soldiers who reported identifying with the images and those who did not, we calculated a series of analysis of variances (ANOVAs) to examine the three outcome scores in relationship to the strength of the soldier’s social self-identification with the images. The five scale items for each social self-identification question were collapsed into three categories: agree, disagree, and undecided.
Stage of change
Using an ANOVA, we compared the mean precontemplation scores for the three collapsed categories of soldiers who agreed, disagreed, and were undecided about the social self-identification items. The lower the score, the greater the participant’s knowledge about their role in preventing sexual assault on their installation. Three social self-identification measures were significantly related to lower precontemplation scores (see Table 2). These items were not significant for Contemplation and the Action Stage of Change scale scores.
Results for Precontemplation Stage of Scale Scores and Social Self-Identification Measures ANOVAs and Bystander Efficacy and Social Self-Identification Measures ANOVAs
p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. ****p < .001.
Bystander efficacy
We compared the bystander efficacy score means for Soldiers who strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed, strongly disagreed, and were undecided with the five social self-identification items. Soldiers who strongly agreed or agreed with the five items had significantly more confidence in intervening in a situation where sexual assault was about to occur, was occurring, or had occurred than those soldiers who did not (see Table 2).
Reported bystander behavior
After participants were shown each campaign image on the online survey, they were asked how many times during the past 6 weeks (the period that the images were displayed on the installation) they had performed one of the active bystander behaviors modeled in the Know Your Power images. Of the 94 people who saw the images and answered these questions, 27% reported that they had performed the highlighted behaviors at least one time. We then calculated a chi-square analysis to examine the relationship between the reported bystander behaviors and whether they agreed or disagreed with the social self-identification measures. The results indicate that identification with images was significantly related to the soldiers’ reports of acting as a prosocial bystander. For instance, of the 94 soldiers who saw the images, 19 reported that in the past 6 weeks they had labeled the behavior of a peer as rape. Ninety-five percent (18) of these 19 soldiers agreed or strongly agreed that the images depicted realistic situations, whereas 5% (1) of the soldiers who reported performing the behavior did not (see Table 3).
Results of Chi-Square Analysis for Percentage of Participants Who Reported Performing the Active Bystander Behaviors Shown in the Know-Your-Power Images at Least One Time During the 6-Week Period and Participants’ Social Self-Identification With the Images
p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. ****p < .001.
OLS for bystander attitude outcomes and social self-identification items
We completed our statistical analysis by examining the impact of the social self-identification variables on precontemplation and bystander efficacy, controlling for participant demographic characteristics, and previous experience with previous sexual violence prevention training using ordinary least squares regression (OLS). These analyses appear in Tables 4 and 5. For each outcome variable (precontemplation and bystander efficacy), we ran five separate OLS regression models to examine how each social self-identification variable affected the outcomes variable. In the OLS precontemplation regression models, three social self-identification variables, “the images depict realistic situations,” “I have witnessed similar situations,” and “I can see myself saying similar things to what the bystanders in the posters are saying,” were the most significant predictors of a participant’s acknowledged responsibility for reducing sexual assault and confidence in acting as a bystander (Table 4). In the bystander efficacy OLS regression models, the most significant predictors of the participants confidence in acting as a bystander included the following four social self-identification items: “Images depict realistic situations,” “The people in the images look like people that I am likely to see,” “I can see myself saying similar things to what the bystanders in the posters are saying,” and “I can see myself doing similar things to what the bystanders in the posters are doing” (see Table 5).
Ordinary Least Square Regression Results for Precontemplation Stage of Scale Scores and Social Self-Identification Measures
p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. ****p < .001.
Ordinary Least Square Regression Results for Bystander Efficacy and Social Self-Identification Measures
p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01. ****p < .001.
Discussion
Results from the current analysis and previous research (Potter et al., 2009, 2011) indicate that passive intervention can raise awareness regarding the role of community members in reducing sexual assault. In the current pilot study, only 78% of the soldiers targeted to participate in the research reported that they saw the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign posters and table tents. The images need to be in many forms and must saturate the community during the campaign period to increase the likelihood that community members will see the images. When four of the Know Your Power images were only used in the 11 × 17 poster format during a 6-week campaign on a Northeastern Public University campus, only 78% of the research participants reported seeing the campaign images (Potter et al., 2009, 2011). Three years later, 95% of the research participants reported viewing the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign images when it was administered on the same campus for a 6-week period. This version of the campaign featured eight images in a number of formats in addition to the 11 × 17 posters (that were posted in the residence halls, university apartments, university buildings and facilities, and local businesses), that included rotating table tents in all campus dining facilities, full-side bus wraps on campus buses, book marks, pop-up screens on university computer clusters, a campaign website, and products with the campaign logo and was reported to be viewed (Potter, in press). The use of different media to display the images facilitated the saturation of the campus and increased the likelihood that research participants saw the campaign images.
The results of our analysis indicate that exposure to the Know Your Power images increased the soldiers’ sense of responsibility (precontemplation) for the prevention of sexual assault on their installations. In other words, soldiers who were exposed to the images were more likely to report that they had a role to play in the prevention of sexual assault compared with soldiers who were not exposed to the images. There was not a significant difference between the soldiers who were exposed to the images and those who were not exposed to the images on the Contemplation and Action Stage of Change subscales. These results are consistent with our preliminary studies of the Know Your Power images on a Northeastern Public University (Potter et al., 2009, 2011). However, in a recent campaign where we were able to use different media to display the images, we found that participants exposed to the campus saturation of Know Your Power images reported an increase in their likeliness to get involved in the prevention of sexual assault (contemplation) and more likely to report taking action to reduce sexual assault (action) in a comparison of the pretest and posttest scores (Potter, in press). It is important to note that soldiers who were exposed to the posters were more likely to report that they had acted as a bystander in a situation where sexual assault was occurring, was about to occur, or had occurred (38%) compared with soldiers who were not exposed to the images (12%). These questions were more pointed and detailed compared with the four-item Stage of Change Action subscale giving participants more opportunity to report on their specific behaviors.
Passive intervention efforts and endeavors to raise community members’ awareness regarding their role in the prevention of sexual assault need to incorporate actors, scenarios, and context that are familiar and resonate with target audience members. The Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign that was piloted on a USAREUR attempted to use “actors,” modeling prescribed prosocial bystander behaviors in familiar settings, who resemble the peer group of target audience members. Thereby, the posters are adding information about the target audiences’ peer groups’ behaviors. From our analysis, we see that research participants indicate that the degree to which the images resonates with them and the familiarity of the context (i.e., social self-identification) significantly effects the participants’ personal responsibility for reducing sexual assault (precontemplation), confidence in acting as a bystander, and reported engagement as a bystander. The importance of seeing oneself as a motivator for behavior change is substantiated in the work illustrating that individuals make decisions regarding their own behavior based on the perception of their peer’s behaviors (Fabiano et al., 2003; Stein, 2007).
There was not a significant difference between male and female soldiers who were exposed to the images in regards to the social self-identification images with the exception of the exception of the item “I can see myself doing similar things to what the bystanders in the posters are doing.” In three of the four images, men and women are portrayed as prosocial bystanders working with their colleagues to help a victim or identify a situation where sexual assault may occur. The hypermasculine culture present on many U.S. Military installations (Schroeder, 2003) and the low arrest rates for perpetrators (Moffet & Herdy, 2004) may give female soldiers apprehension about their public role as a bystander. Future work with members of the target audience needs to examine situations that a female soldier could see themselves acting as a bystander.
The results indicate the importance of presenting a familiar context when engaging target audience members in social marketing campaigns. The research participants were significantly more likely to believe that they had a responsibility for preventing a situation where sexual violence had the potential to occur when they indicated that the scenes portrayed in the images looked like situations that were familiar to them. Furthermore, those participants who indicated familiarity with the image content were more likely to report that they had acted in a manner similar to those portrayed in the image. In a sense, witnessing an image with actors who look like friends of the members of the target audience in an environment that is familiar to the target audience can make the target audience members feel more comfortable in taking on a prosocial bystander role in a situation where sexual violence is occurring or has the potential to occur.
Limitations
The present exploratory study has a number of limitations including the small sample size and the use of posttest only design. The use of a posttest only design only enables us to compare those soldiers who were exposed to the campaign images with those soldiers who were not exposed to the images. As the main posting locations for the images were the barracks and the living areas surrounding these barracks, the two groups may not be the best comparator groups. Soldiers who live in the barracks are younger and less likely to be married compared with soldiers who do not live in military barracks. Using a pretest and posttest methodology would have enabled us to understand how the exposure to the images effected the attitudes and action of the soldiers. The current pilot study was administered on a USAREUR. As there are army posts in every state with the exception of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, further research is needed to examine the effectiveness of these types of prevention efforts on army posts in the United States.
Only 25 soldiers were included in the focus groups that helped translate the images from a college campus to a U.S. Army installation. In the future, more work needs to be done to engage a larger sample of target audience members (e.g., soldiers) in all stages of the image development.
Finally, the soldiers who were exposed to the images on the USAREUR were only exposed to two social marketing campaign mediums (posters and table tents), and there were limited dissemination points. In future evaluations, the use of additional mediums for message promotion needs to be explored and more areas for dissemination need to be identified. Clearly longitudinal research conducted with a much larger military sample is in order, but the findings from this exploratory study are promising regarding the utility of social self-identification in social marketing campaigns modeling prosocial bystander behavior for intervening in situations where sexual violence have occurred, are occurring, or have the potential to occur. Furthermore, as stated above, the Stages of Change Contemplation measure we used in this analysis only addressed sexual assault. As reported, the Cronbach’s alpha was .35 and may not have adequate reliability to detect changes in contemplation. Much higher alpha coefficients were reported in Banyard et al. (2010) for the same measure and in research examining the efficacy of the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign for the Stages of Change Contemplation measure for sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking (Potter, in press). It is possible that this outcome may be related to the limitations of the current sample which is noted above. This outcome clearly supports McMahon et al.’s (2011) call for further empirical tests of reliability on bystander measures.
Conclusion
Our findings support our hypothesis that Know Your Power images would have similar effects on the military installation if the campaign images resonate with the target audience. We were, in fact, able to transfer a social marketing campaign originally designed for a traditional college age population to a military installation by gathering input and feedback from members of an installation and then revising and editing the images and scenarios so that they resonated with the new target audience. The results from this pilot study on a military installation indicate that the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns will be raised if campaign designers work to ensure that the target audience can recognize themselves or people like them or their friends in the images. Similar results have been found with college students (Potter et al., 2009, 2011).
In conclusion, as the U.S. Army continues to develop policies and practices to reduce sexual assault in their ranks, they need to continue to heed the recommendations of the DoD and SAPRO as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and implement prevention strategies that provide all community members with a role to play in ending sexual violence. Results from the current pilot study indicate that the Know Your Power bystander social marketing campaign can be adopted for a military audience and can raise awareness of the role of all community members in reducing sexual assault.
Footnotes
USAREUR’s approval of the UNH request to publish is not an endorsement of the contents of the article, as the views presented are those of the authors and no not necessarily represent the views of DoD or its Components.
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: UNH-USAREUR Contract W912PE- 09-P-0118.
