Bystander Intervention in Coercive Control: Do Relationship to the Victim, Bystander Gender, and Concerns Influence Willingness to Intervene?

With rates of coercive control (CC) increasing, there is a need to ensure that intervention programs are underpinned by evidence-based research. Current interventions are scarce, with their efficacy rarely established. Most current interventions appear to rely on victims seeking support from formal sources/agencies, despite suggestions that victims are more likely to confide in people they know, such as their friends. Researchers suggest that a victim's friends may provide an effective source of support and intervention. The aim of this study was to fill the gap in the literature exploring whether the closeness of the relationship to the victim, bystander gender, and bystander concerns influenced attitudes toward intervening in CC situations. The study used an experimental design, whereby participants were randomly allocated to read a vignette depicting a CC scenario involving a friend, colleague, or stranger, and quantitative methods were used to examine bystanders' willingness and concerns about intervening. The sample was 340 Australian participants (229 female, 111 male), recruited from social media, namely community Facebook groups. The results indicated that friends were significantly more willing to intervene than colleagues or strangers, while strangers reported the highest concerns about intervening. Females reported significantly higher willingness to intervene than men despite also reporting higher concerns. Exploratory analysis of concerns about intervening revealed that the participants were most concerned about risk of harm and their beliefs in their ability to successfully intervene. These findings have implications for bystander intervention programs and campaigns, including offering a range of potential directions to enhance intervention program content.

Bystander Intervention in Coercive Control: Do Ethnic Identity and Acceptance of Coercive Control Influence Willingness to Intervene?

Previous intimate partner violence research and social psychological theory have highlighted that ethnicity and level of harm are both factors that have the potential to influence bystander willingness to intervene in, as well as the acceptance of intimate partner violence between couples. Little research has been conducted on the general willingness of bystanders to intervene in, or the level of acceptance of coercive control. This is the first study to explore whether the likelihood of bystander willingness to intervene is influenced by participant gender, the ethnicity of the couple involved in a hypothetical scenario of coercive control, and by differing levels of abusive behavior. In this study, we also explored the influence of participants' acceptance of coercive control. A semi-experimental design was used, utilizing an online community sample sourced through social media of 346 adult participants across Australia. The participants were randomly allocated to read a fictional coercive control scenario detailing either low or high harm instances of coercive control. Within the online survey the ethnicity of the couple was manipulated with participants' randomly allocated to read a scenario about a couple with the same ethnicity as them (Australian of British or European descent) or a couple with Indian Australian ethnicity. The results showed the participants were significantly more willing to intervene in the coercive control scenario when the couple shared the same ethnicity as them. In response to the low harm scenarios, participants were significantly more accepting of coercive control if the couple were Indian Australian. However, males responding to high harm scenarios were more accepting of coercive control if the couple shared the same ethnic identity as them. The implications from these findings for theory and future bystander intervention programs are discussed.