Yes, No, Maybe So: The Effects of Relationship Status on Perceptions of Inferred Consent.

Despite the notion that sexual consent is either granted or refused, its communication can sometimes be ambiguous. This uncertainty stems from the tendency to rely on implicit, nonverbal cues to indicate consent. Without clear, explicit communication, people might be encouraged to rely upon contextual information when assessing whether a sexual encounter was consensual. Perceived levels of intimacy and familiarity in a relationship might influence these perceptions, such that prior intimacy might lead to ambiguously communicated consent being interpreted as more consensual. Gender roles can dictate the behaviors expected in a sexual encounter, with female-initiated sexual violence against men potentially being perceived as more consensual than the inverse. The current study examined how relationship type (Experiments 1 and 2) and gender pairing (Experiment 2) influenced participants' perceptions of how consensual various sexual encounters were. Participants read a series of vignettes in which sexual consent was verbally granted, verbally rejected, or inferred using nonverbal cues. Additionally, the dyads' relationships were either described as dating, friends, or strangers. Following vignette presentation, participants provided judgments regarding how consensual the interactions were. Experiment 2 expanded upon this by manipulating the gender of the initiators and targets. When consent was not clearly indicated, more established relationships were associated with higher ratings of perceived consent. Male targets were attributed more responsibility for sexual interactions, and they were also believed to want nonconsensual sex more than female targets. These findings highlight the importance of contextual information in instances where sexual consent is unclear.

Knowledge of Adult Sexual Orientation Influences Perceptions of Adult-Child Interactions.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a highly prevalent concern that carries lifelong consequences for the survivor. Many instances of CSA may be prevented when people correctly recognize precursory behaviors to abuse; however, research has shown that people's biases color their perceptions of behavior. Past research demonstrated sexual and gender minority adults are more likely to erroneously be seen as predators and face harsher consequences compared to straight adults. The current study examined how knowledge of adults' sexual orientation influenced perceptions regarding the nature of adult-child interactions. Participants in the current study read a series of vignettes describing interactions between adults and children where the adult sexual orientation (straight male, gay male) and the gender of the child (male, female) were manipulated. Participants then indicated whether they believed the behavior to be predatory or innocuous. Participants were less likely to recognize dangerous behaviors when the adult was described as a straight man interacting with a male child, suggesting that harmful adult-child interactions are more likely to go undetected in these instances.

Masking the truth: the impact of face masks on deception detection.

Because of the pandemic, face masks have become ubiquitous in social interactions, but it remains unclear how face masks influence the ability to discriminate between truthful and deceptive statements. The current study manipulated the presence of face masks, statement veracity, statement valence (positive or negative), and whether the statements had been practiced or not. Despite participants' expectations, face masks generally did not impair detection accuracy. However, participants were more accurate when judging negatively valenced statements when the speaker was not wearing a face mask. Participants were also more likely to believe positively rather than negatively valenced statements.

Boys Round Here: The Relationship Between Masculine Honor Ideology, Aggressive Behavior, Race, and Regional Affiliation.

Masculine honor ideology (MHI) refers to a set of beliefs that dictate men must respond aggressively to threat or insult to maintain their ideal masculine reputation. The current study demonstrates the robust relationship between MHI and lifetime aggression outcomes in a national sample of men from the United States. It also details the regional prevalence of MHI and compares these rates across races and regions of the country. Participants included 896 adult United States men (Mage = 35.86, SD = 1.22) recruited on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. It was expected that the odds of endorsing past aggressive behavior and lifetime maladjustment would be increased by stronger adherence to MHI. This hypothesis was supported, and individuals who reported greater MHI adherence also had higher rates of lifetime aggression and maladjustment. Contrary to expectations, White, non-Hispanic men endorsed lower rates of MHI than did other men. Black men adhered more strongly to MHI than White and Hispanic men. It was also expected that men in the Southern and Western United States would endorse greater MHI in comparison to men in the Northeast United States. The hypothesis was only partially supported for White, non-Hispanic men, and it was associated with participant birthplace and their father's birthplace. There were no regional differences in MHI adherence related to the participants' mother's birthplace or where participants lived at survey completion. These findings suggest that MHI may spread more uniformly than prior research suggests and that MHI may have more nuanced cultural considerations that deserve continued empirical investigation.

Detecting Grooming Behaviors in Same-Sex versus Opposite-Sex Child Sexual Abuse.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a prevalent concern that often leads to severe, life-long consequences. Grooming is an early indicator of CSA, and it is imperative to be able to recognize these behaviors in adult-child relationships to prevent abuse from occurring. Research on CSA and grooming has primarily focused on opposite-sex (male adult and female child) abuse while little research has focused on same-sex (male adult and male child) abuse. The current study examined how the sex of the adult-child pair might impact the identification of grooming behaviors. Participants in this study were presented with a series of vignettes depicting grooming and non-grooming behaviors in either same-sex or opposite-sex adult-child pairs. Participants were more likely to label the behaviors presented as grooming when shown situations involving an opposite-sex adult-child pair as opposed to a same-sex adult-child pair.

Retrospective Perceptions of Grooming in Same-Sex versus Opposite-Sex Child Sexual Abuse.

Research on child sexual abuse (CSA) has predominantly focused on opposite-sex (e.g., male adult-female child) adult-child pairs, neglecting same-sex (e.g., male adult-male child) adult-child pairs. Grooming behaviors are an early indicator of CSA and while it is important to recognize grooming to prevent abuse, research has shown that detecting these behaviors is a difficult task. Despite this difficulty, people retrospectively overestimate their ability to recognize abuse once it is clear that abuse has occurred. The current study investigated how outcome information (abuse did or did not occur) and the sex of the adult-child pair influenced perceptions of adult-child interactions. Participants evaluated vignettes depicting grooming and non-grooming behaviors in same-sex and opposite-sex adult-child conditions. Participants who were told CSA occurred provided higher likelihood ratings that abuse occurred than participants who were not given information about the abuse. There was some evidence that gender pairings influenced retrospective perceptions of these interactions.

Improving the interpretation of verbal eyewitness confidence statements by distinguishing perceptions of certainty from those of accuracy.

When an eyewitness makes an identification from a lineup, police are also instructed to collect a verbal expression of confidence. This recommendation hinges on the assumption that evaluators will perceive confidence in the manner the witness intended. However, research has consistently shown that these interpretations can be biased by accompanying contextual information. For example, statements that reference facial features (e.g., "I'm very sure. I remember his eyes.") are perceived as less confident than when the statement is presented alone ("I'm very sure.") (featural justification effect). Additionally, perceptions of witness confidence are altered when the witness's identification (mis-)matches the police suspect in a lineup (prior knowledge). We find that the same underlying mechanism explains the bias induced by both featural justification (Experiments 1 and 2) and prior knowledge (Experiment 3) manipulations. Evaluators conflate their own beliefs about the accuracy of an identification with the witness's intended level of confidence. A simple warning that highlights the differences between confidence and accuracy eliminates the featural justification effect, but is less effective for mitigating the influence of prior knowledge. The key takeaway from this paper is that distinguishing perceptions of certainty from those of accuracy improves the interpretation of verbal confidence statements. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of statement type and repetition on deception detection.

BACKGROUND: Deception is a prevalent component of human interaction. However, meta-analyses suggest that discriminating between truthful and deceptive statements is a very arduous task and accuracy on these judgments is at chance levels. To complicate matters further, individuals tell different types of lies. The current studies examined how an individual's ability to accurately discriminate between truthful and deceptive statements is affected by the way truths and lies are conveyed. Participants judged the veracity of statements given by speakers who told truths or lies about a performed action by describing that action or denying that it had occurred. Additionally, these statements also differed with regard to how often the lie had been repeated (i.e., practiced), either once or thrice. RESULTS: The results were largely in line with the prevailing notion that it is difficult to successfully differentiate between truthful and deceptive statements, but also showed that performance was moderated by statement type and repetition. The results revealed that participants were more accurate in discriminating unrepeated descriptions than repeated descriptions, but this difference was not seen for denial statements. Additionally, participants were more likely to believe practiced (repeated) statements, both truthful and deceptive. CONCLUSION: The results show that repeated statements as well as shorter denials can increase the difficulty of differentiating truthful from deceptive statements. Additionally, these findings suggest that truthful statements also benefit from repetition with regard to enhancing their believability.

Expectancy effects in the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.

The Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a tingling, almost euphoric, sensation often elicited following certain visual or auditory stimulations (Barratt & Davis, 2015). Despite considerable media attention, little empirical work has investigated the underlying mechanisms. In the present study, ASMR enthusiasts and naïve observers listened to audio clips with and without ASMR-eliciting characteristics. We also manipulated participants' expectations of ASMR, providing a measure of "placebo effects." Although naïve participants were susceptible to suggestive instructions, experienced users were not, suggesting that initial exposure to ASMR media may evoke somatosensory responses consistent with one's expectations. Implications for at-home stress management techniques are discussed.

Context influences interpretation of eyewitness confidence statements.

When an eyewitness makes an identification from a lineup, he or she is asked to provide a confidence statement to help jurors assess credibility. However, these are verbal statements and people must rely on metacognitive processes to correctly interpret them. Recently, Dodson and Dobolyi (2015) argued that a person's interpretation of a witness's verbal confidence is influenced by the diagnosticity of the features used to justify his or her identification. We tested this hypothesis in 2 experiments. Experiment 1 found that, relative to a confidence-only control, participants reduced their ratings of confidence when statements were justified using a facial feature that was shared by lineup members, but not when the feature was unique to the member chosen from the lineup. In Experiment 2, we found that participants integrated across the dimensions of witness confidence and accuracy, even when asked to make separate ratings. Altogether, the results suggest that people readily incorporate contextual information into their interpretations of witnesses' verbal expressions of confidence and evaluations of accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record