Exploring revictimization risk in a community sample of sexual assault survivors

Previous research points to links between risk detection (the ability to detect danger cues in various situations) and sexual revictimization in college women. Given important differences between college and community samples that may be relevant to revictimization risk (e.g., the complexity of trauma histories), the current study explored the link between risk detection and revictimization in a community sample of women. Community-recruited women (N = 94) reported on their trauma histories in a semistructured interview. In a laboratory session, participants listened to a dating scenario involving a woman and a man that culminated in sexual assault. Participants were instructed to press a button "when the man had gone too far." Unlike in college samples, revictimized community women (n = 47) did not differ in terms of risk detection response times from women with histories of no victimization (n = 10) or single victimization (n = 15). Data from this study point to the importance of examining revictimization in heterogeneous community samples where risk mechanisms may differ from college samples.