title: Responding in their best interests: Contextualizing women's coping with acquaintance sexual aggression.
abstract: Using an investigation of 202 college women who completed a survey about coping with sexual aggression from a known male assailant, the authors examined assailant behaviors, along with women's victimization history, alcohol use, positive relationship expectancies, and sexual assertiveness, to clarify how these factors shape women's responses to acquaintance sexual aggression. Multivariate regression analyses showed that these factors and assailant actions accounted uniquely and cumulatively for women's responding. Rape avoidance and resistance training programs can benefit by using a two-pronged approach: by targeting factors that impede and promote women's assertion and by helping women anticipate and respond to assailant actions.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
authors.forename: Rebecca J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Macy
authors.forename: Paula S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Nurius
authors.forename: Jeanette
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Norris
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D018585:Battered Women / Q000523:psychology*; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015206:Southwestern United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires