Keywords

Sexual Assault; Sexual Assault Disclosure; Race; Ethnicity; Disclosure Recipient; Informal Disclosure; Formal Disclosure

Abstract

To date, most research on sexual assault disclosure has utilized samples composed predominately of White women (Fedina et al., 2018). As a result, there is a need for research that examines sexual assault disclosure within racially and ethnically diverse samples. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine whether survivors’ race/ethnicity is related to whether they disclose their sexual assault to others of the same and different races and ethnicities. The study recruited undergraduate college students from the UCF Psychology Department Sona System to complete an online survey that assessed history of sexual assault and disclosure of sexual assault (for those who endorsed a history of sexual assault). For the current study, the sample was restricted to students who had experienced a sexual assault since the age of 14 (n = 139). White participants were more likely to disclose to a friend of the same race than non-White participants, χ 2 (1, N = 139) = 11.80, p < .001, and more likely to disclose to a family member of the same race than non-White participants, χ 2 (1, N = 139) = 5.32, p = .021. Additionally, there are no statistically significant differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic participants in disclosure likelihood for any type of disclosure recipient group. These findings suggest that research examining barriers of sexual assault disclosure in diverse racial and ethnic populations is needed.

Thesis Completion Year

2024

Thesis Completion Semester

Spring

Thesis Chair

Newins, Amie

College

College of Sciences

Department

Psychology

Thesis Discipline

Clinical Psychology

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus Access

None

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

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