Reasoning about Sexual Assault in Emerging Adults: The Role of Consent

Emerging adult college students (77 men, 82 women) in the U.S. evaluated consent and the acceptability of a sexual act in hypothetical scenarios which varied the response of the protagonist/victim, the length of the relationship and the gender of the protagonist. Judgments of the acceptability of sexual acts were strongly associated with judgments of consent. Judgments of consent and the acceptability, responsibility for and deserved-punishment for the sexual act differed depending on the victim’s responses and relationships lengths. Compared to women, men judged sex after the freezing response to be more acceptable, and the perpetrator to be less responsible and less punish-worthy. In addition, men were less likely than women to label responses where the victim froze as rape. No differences were found between participants in their first years of college compared to their last years of college.