Factors Affecting Women's Verbal Immediacy to Sexually Risky Situations

Abstract

The current study used a word count measure of verbal immediacy to analyze undergraduate women's responses to a set of written vignettes describing hypothetical situations involving sexual risk. Several influences on verbal immediacy were examined, including severity of previous victimization, sexual-risk proximity, relationship intimacy, and response effectiveness. Results revealed that women with a more severe history of victimization evidenced less immediacy in their responses than both women with a less severe or no history of victimization. Responses higher in immediacy were rated as more effective by a group of undergraduate peers. The interaction of risk proximity and relationship intimacy also predicted verbal immediacy. Women responded with greater immediacy to distal risk situations involving nonintimates, and less immediacy to proximal risk situations as well as distal risk situations involving intimates.