Bystander Responses to Intimate Partner Misconduct: Barriers to Responding to Physical and Sexual Violations

All forms of unchecked acts of violence against women may harm individual women while also normalizing the ways in which women are routinely violated. Violence against women manifests across a continuum of linked behaviors, yet few studies have investigated bystander responses to less extreme forms of intimate partner violence. We examined bystander responses to different forms of misconduct: physical (grabbing and imminent slapping) or sexual (groping and unwanted kissing). Undergraduates (N = 402) read and responded to dating conflict scenarios in which they witnessed a young man verbally insult a young woman while perpetrating either sexual or physical misconduct. Across conditions, 42% of participants described misconduct as abusive, although this was significantly more common among those assigned to the physical (52%) than sexual (32%) conditions. Compared with those in the sexual misconduct condition, participants in the physical misconduct condition reported greater intent to directly intervene. Furthermore, participants in the physical misconduct condition also reported more barriers to intervention, including less awareness/attention to misconduct, less perceived danger to the victim, and less personal responsibility to intervene. In multivariate analyses, less awareness/attention to misconduct and less personal responsibility uniquely predicted lower intent to intervene; these same barriers also explained the tendency for bystanders to report lower intent to intervene in response to sexual than physical misconduct. These results suggest the need for education to promote awareness of the continuum of violence against women. Education also is needed to increase feelings of personal responsibility to challenge the normalization of less extreme violent acts.