Building Healthy Academic Communities Journal Vol. 2, No. 2, 2018 © 2018 Spikes & Sternadori. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Boomerang Effects of Sexual-Violence Prevention Messages on College Men’s Attitudes Caitlin Spikes, MA Miglena Sternadori, PhD Texas Tech University ABSTRACT Background: Sexual assault is a serious public health problem in the U.S. Although colleges and universities receiving federal funding are required to provide sexual violence prevention and awareness programs, initiatives aimed specifically at college men remain relatively uncommon. Furthermore, assessments of the effectiveness of such programs suggest that most do not contribute to the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses. Aim: This study investigates the prevalence and malleability of attitudes that underlie sexually violent behaviors perpetrated by self-identified heterosexual, cisgender male college students against college women. Methods: Seventy-one self-identified heterosexual, cisgender, full-time undergraduate male students, all at low risk for committing sexual assault, participated in a pretest-posttest online experiment. They were randomly assigned to one control condition and two experimental sexual-assault-prevention interventions featuring a female or a male speaker. Results: The experimental conditions did not have the intended effects of eliciting attitudes that would further the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses. The experimental conditions were, in fact, less effective on some measures than the control condition. Conclusions: The findings suggest a boomerang effect, which refers to a persuasive outcome opposite to the desired one. Previous research has pointed to boomerang effects of sexual-assault prevention programs among high-risk men. The results of this study suggest a boomerang effect is also evident among college men at low risk for committing sexual assault. Submitted 1 October 2018: accepted 17 October 2018 Keywords: college men, sexual assault, prevention, boomerang effect Sexual assault is an increasingly serious public health problem in the U.S., with “far-reaching consequences to the victims” (Orchowski & Gidycz, 2015, p. 803). Although all colleges and universities receiving federal funding are required to provide rape prevention and awareness programs (Malamuth, Huppin, & Linz, 2018), initiatives aimed specifically at college men remain relatively uncommon. A report prepared for the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault in 2014 notes efforts to engage men at 32 colleges and universities receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Violence against Women (OVW, DeGue, 2014, p. 27). The initiatives include programs such as “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes,” “Coaching Boys into Men,” “Beyond Tough Guise” chapters of Men against Rape, V-Men, and Men of Strength, “Bro Code” workshops, and presentations at freshman orientations. Among these programs, only “Coaching Boys into Men” (11 sessions of 10-15 minutes for college brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by OSU Libraries Digital Journal Publishing (Ohio State University)