Abstract
Sexual assault and partner abuse are major problems on college campuses. While the majority of victims will tell a friend or other informal support about their experience, formal disclosures to authorities are still infrequent. Past research has examined barriers to choosing to disclose; however, little research has explored victims’ motivational goals behind their decision to disclose to various people. In the present study, 13 semistructured interviews were conducted with survivors of partner abuse and/or sexual violence at northeastern universities in the United States and the resulting data were content coded for motivations associated with disclosing. Four major themes emerged: (1) improving emotional or psychological well-being; (2) fulfilling perceived social obligations or responsibilities; (3) seeking information or assessment; and (4) seeking action in the form of advocacy, accommodations, or criminal prosecution. Results from this study suggest that there is not a “one-size-fits-all” model for responding to informal and formal reports of victimization on campuses. Implications of these results for designing survivor-centered college community responses will be discussed.
One in five women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000) and a national study estimates that 5% of college women are sexually assaulted annually (Krebs, Lingquist, Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2009). Reports of intimate partner violence are similar, with 7% of men and 20% of women estimated to experience intimate partner violence at some point during their lives (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000) and as many as 25% of college women experiencing partner abuse before graduation (Kaukinen, Gover, & Hartman, 2012). Despite the alarming prevalence of victimization, as well as increased efforts made by mental health and support service professionals (Walsh, Banyard, Moynihan, Ward, & Cohn, 2010), disclosure to these professionals is still not high (Edwards, Dardis, & Gidycz, 2011; Fisher et al., 2000). Feminist researchers have discussed low rates of disclosure in terms of the ways in which women’s disproportionate experience of sexual assault and relationship abuse reinforces women’s unequal access to power in society and have noted that remaining silent about victimization is one manifestation of that powerlessness (Edwards et al., 2011; Ullman, 2010).
Consistent with principals of feminist inquiry, the purpose of the current study was to listen to the voices of survivors themselves to learn more about what motivated them to tell different people about their experience and what outcomes of disclosure they were seeking. A greater understanding of why victims choose to disclose may result in higher satisfaction with disclosure and help seeking and may assist professional helpers, including social workers, in designing policies and resources that truly match the needs of survivors at different points in their trauma recovery. For the purpose of this article, we will use “disclosure” when referring to both informal and formal support sources.
Informal and Formal Support Systems
In the interpersonal violence literature, two primary support systems are differentially discussed; informal and formal. Informal support systems consist of friends, family, romantic partners, and the like (Ahrens, Campbell, Ternier-Thames, Wasco, & Sefl, 2007), whereas formal support systems include medical, legal, and mental health professionals (Ahrens & Aldana, 2012). The majority of victims of sexual assault will disclose to informal supports at some point during their lifetime, with two thirds of victims doing so within the first year following the incident (Fisher et al., 2000). Rates of informal disclosure for victims of intimate partner violence are even higher, with 75–92% of victims telling someone they know, commonly a close female friend (Edwards et al., 2011). In comparison, fewer than 5% of sexual assault victims file reports with the police (Fisher et al., 2000), and as few as 9% of intimate partner violence victims make formal police reports (Mahlstedt & Keeny, 1993). Although formal support systems often have the potential to provide more tangible aid such as resources or justice, substantially fewer victims disclose to mental health professionals, medical doctors, and police than they do informal support systems (Ashley & Foshee, 2005; Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, & Turner, 2003). Beyond rates of disclosure and disclosure source, research has also focused on several other key aspects of this phenomenon: characteristics of the incident that make disclosure more likely to formal or informal supports and reactions of others to disclosure, among others. Feminist research documents that women are more likely to disclose assaults that confirm to societal stereotypes of deserving or believable victims (Ullman, 2010) and that the reactions survivors experience often contain victim blaming messages, further reinforcing patriarchy reinforcing master narratives about victims’ lack of credibility and powerlessness (Edwards et al., 2011). What is more, increasingly policies in contexts like college campuses are putting procedures in place to mandate reporting of sexual assaults, removing autonomy for reporting by survivors. To ensure that new policies are more victim centers, we need to learn more about survivor’s own perceptions of their needs when they choose to tell others. However, closely examining reasons for seeking disclosure to these different potential sources of support is limited in the literature.
Correlates and Barriers to Disclosure
Feminist analyses describe ways in which sexual violence can be culturally normalized, making it difficult for survivors to name their experiences as ones that they might disclose, especially to formal authorities (Hlavka, 2014). Research suggests that victims take a number of factors into consideration when choosing to disclose, including evaluating the severity of the incident, anticipating others’ reactions, and weighing the costs and benefits of disclosure (Ahrens et al., 2007; Browne, 1991). Even though significantly fewer victims report their assaults to formal support systems, there are trends among those that do. Patterson and Campbell (2010) found that approximately half of victims who disclose to police and take part in the criminal justice system report doing so to ensure that the perpetrator will not commit the same act on another person. The remaining half of victims were convinced by other people to report for their own safety or for the safety of others, or the incident was reported by someone else. From this work, we may infer that for many, the hope of protecting others from the same attacker is the main driving force to engage in a long criminal justice process (Patterson & Campbell, 2010). Women are also more likely to report their crimes to police or medical professionals when they have visible injuries and thus we may infer that a reason for disclosure is seeking treatment for injuries. Victims who have little to no obvious injury from an assault are more likely to only disclose to informal support systems (Ullman & Filipas, 2001).
When reasons for disclosure are studied, it is often in relation to an inverse question—why they choose not to report to authorities or disclose to others. Barriers to disclosure occur at multiple levels, from the individual level (e.g., feeling shame or self-blame), to interpersonal factors (e.g., continued relations with the assailant or people who know the assailant), and to societal or community issues (e.g., availability of resources in the area for the victim to utilize or cultural messages that work against labeling sexual assault as something to be reported), with impacts to both informal and formal disclosure decisions (Browne, 1991; Hlavka, 2014; Liang, Goodman, Tummala-Narra, & Weintraub, 2005). Concerns around gender stereotypes, perceptions of the victim and their experiences, and loyalty to a friend or family member (if the person they are disclosing to knows the perpetrator) can make disclosing to informal helpers especially difficult (Ahrens et al., 2007; Liang et al., 2005). In the case of intimate partner violence, researchers have found that around 80% of those who did not report their abuse cited minimization or feeling as if the assault was not serious enough as reasons as well as concerns that they will not be believed or that others could not understand their experiences, concerns that researchers have identified as likely due in part to patriarchal cultural norms that minimize the importance of sexual assault and relationship abuse and are connected to pervasive victim blaming messages (Edwards et al., 2011).
Responses to Victims’ Disclosures
In addition to correlates and barriers, perhaps the most studied questions related to sexual assault disclosure pertain to reactions that victims receive from others when they do tell. The majority of victims (80%) disclose to more than one person, with the average being three people in total (Ahrens et al., 2007). Thus, victims may receive an array of different responses from people of varying importance in their lives. The responses that a victim receives after each disclosure can have an impact on their healing process, whether or not they disclose to another person and whether they decide to take further steps to prosecute the attacker (Ahrens et al., 2007).
While positive social reactions do not always have a significant effect on a victim’s healing process, negative social reactions can be quite detrimental, including increased rates of posttraumatic stress, depression, and physical health issues (Campbell, Ahrens, Sefl, Wasco, & Barnes, 2001). Some of the most common negative social reactions include blame, minimizing, and taking control of the situation, whereas some of the most common positive social reactions include believing the victim and emotional support, such as telling them it is not their fault (Ullman & Filipas, 2001).
In the case of formal support services, negative reactions occur more commonly than positive reactions, except when the disclosure is initiated by the support service providers themselves, such as a police officer at the scene of the crime asking questions or a therapist trying to delve deeper into a client’s past to understand other problems (Ahrens et al., 2007). Satisfaction with the outcome of one’s disclosure decision is particularly important, as researchers have found that negative reactions can impact future disclosures, especially to authorities, psychological well-being, and retention in the legal system (Ahrens et al., 2007). Negative reactions to disclosure or reporting can also have a silencing effect where the victim stops talking about their experiences entirely (Ahrens et al., 2007).
Victims’ Goals and Hopes Around Disclosure
Negative reactions to disclosure have been associated with social norms that condone violence in relationships and blame victims and result in a host of undesirable outcomes for survivors; however, what makes a reaction subjectively judged as negative? One way to address this question is to look at whether or not the reaction the victim received during a disclosure matched their expectation or what they were seeking when they decided to disclose. However, there is little research on victims’ motivations or goals or reasons behind disclosure, including their expectations for the reactions of others. Research that exists on informal disclosures has noted that when victims choose to disclose to friends, family, or romantic partners, they most often report doing so in order to gain emotional support such as reassurance that everything will be okay, being told it was not their fault, or having someone listen without judgment (Ahrens et al., 2007; Browne, 1991). However, most of the literature in this area focuses on who victims disclosed to, what types of reactions they received, and how that impacted their healing process in the aftermath of the victimization (Ahrens & Aldana, 2012; Browne, 1991; Ullman & Filipas, 2001). More research on what motivations lead to disclosure, as well as victims’ goals regarding outcomes associated with disclosure, is needed.
The Current Study
Much of the current literature on disclosure focuses on barriers to disclosing, who victims ultimately disclose to, what types of reactions they receive, and how those reactions impact their healing process in the aftermath of victimization (Ahrens & Aldana, 2012; Browne, 1991; Ullman & Filipas, 2001). Qualitative research with victims examining their motivations for telling others could reveal nuances in disclosure decisions and offer greater insight into what hopes and goals victims have when they decide to tell. This information is especially critical for practitioners (e.g., social workers, mental health counselors) who may benefit from understanding the potential needs and wants of their clients that disclose victimization experiences to inform their conceptual/practice model when working with survivors. The current study aimed to use a feminist lens to interview victims at northeastern universities to capture variations in survivors’ self-expressed needs and motivations to address this gap in the literature by providing a qualitative look at victims’ expressed motivations (e.g., goals, hopes, desired treatment, and outcomes) for disclosing to various informal and formal helpers and authorities. The current article will explore the following questions and their implications for victim-focused responses: First, what themes might exist for victims’ expressed motivations behind choosing to disclose? Second, how do victims’ goals and expectations vary when they choose to disclose to various informal and formal resources (i.e., informal helpers such as friends, community helpers like a social worker, and community authorities such as police)? Information in these areas will help provide a more complete understanding of why victims choose to disclose to others, initially and over time, both formally and informally and may help insure the resources and responses provided by others are grounded in a victim-centered perspective.
Method
Participants
Participants in this study were recruited from a much larger study conducted at eight universities in New England (Demers et al., 2017), in which students filled out online surveys that included valid and reliable questions about victimization experiences while enrolled. Anyone that reported a behavior that could be categorized as physical dating violence by a partner, an unwanted sexual experience, or an unwanted pursuit in their survey was redirected to a page where they could indicate if they were willing to be contacted for a follow-up study and provide their contact information. Forty-two participants indicated a willingness to be contacted and were invited via e-mail, and confirmed via phone, to participate in this follow-up study. In total, 14 subjects agreed to participate. However, for the purposes of this article, the one subject who experienced an unwanted pursuit that responded to the invitation was removed from analyses. It could not be determined from the interview whether or not the incident occurred in connection with physical abuse or an unwanted sexual experience by a partner and a single participant interview would make translating the results to a wider population of stalking victims difficult. The broader term “unwanted experiences” was chosen for use in the interviews out of sensitivity to the fact that survivors might not choose words like physical dating violence or sexual assault to describe their experiences.
Eleven out of the remaining 13 participants analyzed in the current study were female, most were young (M = 22 years) with ages ranging from 19 to 38, and all but 1 participant identified as Caucasian (92%). The homogeneity of the sample mirrors the demographics at the universities surveyed. Just under two thirds of participants were still enrolled in school (juniors = 3, seniors = 4, grad students = 1) at the time of the study, while the remaining five participants had graduated.
Experiences of victimization were relatively evenly distributed (physical abuse by a partner = 7, unwanted sexual experience = 6). It’s important to note that participants were asked to indicate their experience of victimization that they considered to be the most serious. Several participants struggled to decide which experience was most serious during interviews; thus, it is safe to presume that some participants may have actually experienced more than one type of victimization. Regarding demographic differences between the two victimization groups, all but one of the participants interviewed about an unwanted sexual experience were still enrolled in college and the only two male participants in the study were interviewed about an unwanted sexual or physical behavior by a partner.
Measures
Experiences of victimization were determined via responses given during the preceding survey-based study mentioned previously (Demers et al., 2017) and included measures used in past research to assess physical partner abuse and sexual violence (e.g., Banyard, Ward, Cohn, Moorehead, & Walsh, 2007; Foshee et al., 1998). During a semistructured interview, participants were first asked to whom they disclosed their unwanted experience via a selective list of choices (i.e., police officer, attorney, medical official or Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) nurse, therapist, hall director, resident assistant, Title IX representative, crisis center advocate, campus disciplinary board, dean of the university, professor, coach, friends, family members) read one at a time by the interviewer. The selection of choices spanned three categories of disclosure recipients, informal helpers (e.g., friends, relatives, etc.), community helpers (e.g., therapists, crisis center advocates, medical staff, etc.), and community authorities (e.g., police, attorneys, Title IX representatives, professors, university deans, etc.). For the purposes of this study, any support who is a mandated reporter at the university was categorized as a community authority.
All 13 participants disclosed to at least one informal support, while 9 participants accessed formal supports (helpers = 69.2%, authorities = 38.5%). In total, 58 different recipients or recipient groups (some participants reported disclosing to several people at once and thus chose to answer questions about the group as a whole) were reported by participants and coded (informal helpers = 63.8%, community helpers = 22.4%, community authorities 13.8%). The greatest number of recipients of disclosure reported by participants were friends (n = 21, M = 36.2%), followed by immediate family members (n = 10, M = 17.2%), therapists (n = 6, M = 10.3%), advocates (n = 5, M = 8.6%), and police (n = 4, M = 6.9%).
After identifying recipients of disclosure, participants were asked a series of questions about their goals and hopes associated with disclosing to the first person on the list that they indicated having told. Questions specific to how the victim was treated during the disclosure as well as the outcome of the disclosure were included. The same list of questions was repeated for the next person on the list to whom the participant disclosed, until everyone they identified had been addressed. The interview included questions, such as “why did you decide to speak with [your mom] about what happened?,” “what was your goal or hope in telling your [therapist] about what happened?,” “how did [your friends] treat you during your interaction when you told them about what had happened?,” “how were you hoping to be treated?,” “what was the outcome of telling [the police] what happened?,” “was it the outcome that you had hoped for?,” and “what more did you want to happen with your interaction with [the crisis center advocate]?” Interviewers were able to ask for clarification when needed and to rephrase questions if participants requested clarification. All participants completed the interview in full.
Procedures
Upon approval by the university’s institutional review board, potential participants were contacted initially by e-mail and later by phone to be asked to participate in a follow-up study approximately 1 year following the initial larger study. A US$20 Amazon gift card was offered as an incentive for participation. For those participants who consented, a time was scheduled and semistructured interviews were conducted over the phone and audio recorded. After answering some initial demographics questions, participants were asked to identify the unwanted physical behavior by a partner or unwanted sexual experience that they disclosed in the previous survey. If participants explained that they had more than one experience of victimization, they were asked to choose which incident within the last 2 years they felt was most serious for the purposes of the interview. All questions were asked in relation to this one incident. Following the interview, audio recordings were transcribed. All participants were e-mailed a debriefing form that included a list of resources for victims of violence and sent the gift card.
Data Analysis
Transcripts were coded using thematic analyses (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Miles & Huberman, 1994), with a focus on identifying themes and patterns. People to whom participants disclosed their experiences were broken into three categories for the purposes of coding: informal helpers, community helpers, and community authorities. Analyses then began with coders reading through the transcripts several times to infer themes and develop an initial coding scheme under each of the three categories. Codes were assigned separately for each disclosure described by the 13 participants. This amounted to 58 instances of disclosure being individually analyzed (informal helpers = 37 instances, community helpers = 13 instances, community authorities = 8 instances). Transcripts were double coded by two separate coders after achieving a reasonable standard of reliability. Any lasting discrepancies between coders were discussed and transcripts were systematically recoded if necessary. Lastly, coders examined the completed scheme for any potential themes into which codes might be aggregated. These emerging patterns in victims’ disclosures are summarized in the qualitative analysis below.
Results
Four main themes around participants’ motivations and associated hopes or goals in disclosing their experience to others emerged during the qualitative interviews: (1) improving their emotional or psychological well-being; (2) fulfilling perceived social obligations or responsibilities; (3) seeking information or assessment; and (4) seeking action in the form of advocacy, accommodations, or criminal prosecution. In addition, answers in which participants stated that they were unsure of their goals at the time of disclosure were coded, and answers which could not be coded within the scheme, either because they were not interpretable or because they were unique from noted patterns, were coded as “other.” Most participants described multiple motivations behind choosing to disclose to each person they indicated, with the number of different stated motivations associated with the same disclosure recipient averaging 3 and ranging from 1 to 6.
Emotional or Psychological Well-Being
Four main subgoals were noted in relation to participants’ wanting to improve their mental health or well-being: (1) having a voice and being heard, (2) being validated through belief and understanding, (3) seeking insight to help process the event or gain closure, and (4) vaguely described desires for “support.” Every participant attributed a motivation related to improving their emotional or psychological well-being to at least one of their disclosure decisions.
Having a voice and being heard
Twelve participants indicated having a voice as a goal associated with at least one of their contacts. This particular subgoal was the most common motivation described by participants. While some participants verbalized this goal as a need for self-expression or to say it out loud (e.g., “I guess just to express my feelings cause I’m the type of person who likes to express myself”; “I mean I just wanted to be able to sit down and say this is what happened”), other participants described this goal with a focus on the desired actions of others (e.g., “I was hoping to be like listened to”; “I just wanted them to actually listen”). Participants also explained how the need to verbalize what happened to them was precipitated by a build in discomfort over keeping a secret or staying silent (e.g., “If you don’t somehow sort of I guess share it with someone it builds up inside”; “Um I guess ultimately just getting it off my chest. So it wasn’t kept kind of just bottled in there”; “It was really painful to keep it from everybody”). While these needs were particularly strong for disclosing to informal helpers (11:13 participants), they were also quite strong for formal disclosures (5:9 = community helpers, 4:5 = community authorities).
Validation through belief and understanding
Similarly, 11 participants also described receiving validation as a goal associated with at least one of their disclosure decisions. Validation was often defined as a recipient of disclosure demonstrating a better understanding of the participant (e.g., “more of a better understanding of why I am I guess the person I am now from that experience”; “My goal was to have them understand what I was going through”). Some participants spoke specifically to being believed or taken seriously (e.g., “I feel like being believed and being treated you know normally”; “I would’ve liked at first maybe um a little less skepticism”; “I was hoping that it would be like a little different and that I would be taken a little more seriously”). Other participants wanted validation that they were not to blame for what happened to them (e.g., “I just wanted him of all people to say it wasn’t my fault”; “and um almost a validation that it-it’s not my fault”) and to feel free from judgment (e.g., “I guess not being judged”; “I just wish there was a little bit- a little bit more acceptance”). Overall, this subgoal was most important for disclosures to informal supports (10:13 participants) but was still identified by two thirds of participants disclosing to community helpers (6:9 participants) and over half of participants disclosing to community authorities (3:5 participants).
Seeking insight for processing or closure
Eight participants indicated seeking insight as a goal associated with at least one of their disclosure contacts. This goal was often described by participants as a need for gaining clarity about the event and its effect on their life (e.g., “Um just kind of like clarity”; “To get to the core of what was the underlying issues”; “to get to the core of what was…the underlying issues which were uh causing me so much stress and anxiety and ultimately leading to uh depression”). Participants often expressed a motivation to find closure or peace with their experience (e.g., “Just to kind of feel better and get peace a little bit more”; “To be able to move past it”; “I would be okay with it. I would accept it. It wouldn’t really bother me”; “yeah I wanted to put it behind me”) or other therapeutic goals related to processing the event (e.g., “In a way I was just trying to regain some sense of control about the situation in regards to how it was handled”). Just over half of participants who disclosed to community helpers identified this as a goal (5:9 participants) and not surprisingly, attributed it to disclosures to therapists and crisis center advocates. While this was also an important subgoal for disclosure to informal helpers (5:13 participants), the participants in this study did not discuss seeking insight in relation to community authority disclosures.
Vaguely described desires for social support
Vague descriptions of support seemed to be mostly specific to informal disclosures. Nine of the 13 participants who disclosed to informal helpers (1:9 = community helpers, 0:5 = community authorities) mentioned motivations related to social support that were not well defined (e.g., “To be supported and um I guess that’s basically it”; “Just to have people there for me”; “I wanted some supports”). It’s unclear whether participants were unable to define what shape “support” should take for them or whether they considered their definition to be universally understood and not requiring further explanation.
Social Obligations or Influences
Three main subgoals were noted in relation to participants’ choosing to disclose based on perceived social obligations or influences: (1) maintaining or enhancing a relationship through sharing, (2) being encouraged or pressured by others to tell, and (3) feeling morally or ethically bound to disclosing. Eleven of the 13 participants attributed at least one of their disclosure decisions to motivations related to social dynamics.
Maintaining or enhancing a relationship
Eleven participants described choosing to disclose to someone as part of relationship maintenance and following the rules of friendship. Unsurprisingly, this motivation was largely associated with disclosing to informal helpers (11:13 participants), with only one of the nine participants citing this motivation for community helpers and none for community authorities. Participants explained that disclosing the event was part of an honest relationship, (e.g., “Um just so she knew and she didn’t feel like I was keeping stuff from her”; “I felt like I couldn’t lie to her and tell her that nothing did happen when I was so upset about it”; “Because I prefer them to hear it from me than someone else”; “with a goal of sort of making…keeping communication open and honest”). Several other participants remarked that they hoped the disclosure would enhance the relationship in some way (e.g., “A shared experience conversation…in psychological terms it would be you know opening the bond a little bit further”; “I was kind of hoping that it would bring us closer”). Lastly, participants expressed a concern for the disclosure recipients discomfort or confusion should they not know about the event (e.g., “Um cause sometimes I would get a little like snappy and they didn’t really know why so I kind of like explained to them like what I was going through and what happened”; “the main reason behind telling her was so that she wouldn’t have to be uncomfortable asking that”). One participant explained her reasoning in greater detail, My behavioral patterns weren’t the same and I didn’t want it to get to the point that you know they would think it was them or something; that I was like uncomfortable because I was in a room with them. Um I wanted her to know that you know, yes in fact it doesn’t have anything to do with you obviously because this happened and so I think my overall goal was to just being able to make it an easier transition like for her to be—for her to understand.
Encouraged or pressured to tell by others
Three participants reported disclosure goals associated with appeasing others’ requests or urging. While one might expect there to be more pressure to disclose to community authorities, only one of the five participants who disclosed to community authorities gave this as a motivation. Three of the nine participants discussed disclosing to a community helper due to a friend or family member’s insistence or suggestions (e.g., “Because a friend encouraged me to”; “My mother called me and insisted that I go see them”; “My friend suggested it”) and no one reported this goal in relation to telling an informal helper.
Moral or ethical obligations
Surprisingly, only one participant reported feeling motivated to disclose the event due to moral or ethical duties to other people. Naturally, this participant reported this motivation associated with disclosing to formal authorities, stating, “Um just ‘cause it happened to a lot of other people and I kind of, since I was the oldest person…since the other girls were really shy.”
Information or Assessment
Two subgoals fell under participants’ motivations related to needing to obtain information or assessment of the event: (1) obtaining information and appraisal of the event as serious and (2) seeking minimization of the event. Six of the 13 participants attributed at least one of their disclosure decisions to motivations related to seeking information or assessment.
Seeking information or appraisal
Three participants in the study were motivated to disclose to others by a need for information or appraisal of what happened to them. Two of the 9 participants chose to disclose to community helpers for this purpose, while just 1 of the 13 participants sought out an informal helper. None of the five participants disclosing to a community authority cited this goal. Participants expressed needing a second opinion (e.g., “I also wanted her feedback like on…on people who do things like that”; “Just that I guess I would get someone else’s opinion”) or needing basic information related to the event (e.g., “I wasn’t sure if what I experienced was actually domestic violence”).
Minimization of the event
Four participants described disclosing to someone with the hope that the recipient would minimize the event. Three of the 13 participants cited this motivation when disclosing to informal helpers, while 1 of the 5 participants indicated it in relation to a community authority disclosure. Participants’ statements suggest a need for the disclosure recipient to downplay the significance of the event (e.g., “Like someone to just um not like make it a bigger deal than it was. I mean it happened a year ago so it wasn’t like that big of a deal anymore”; “At the time I probably wasn’t hoping for that, like I was probably hoping like ‘oh I can’t believe he would do that to you’ like ‘It’s probably not him’ like ‘it’s stupid, it must’ve been like a one-time thing’”), some participants appear to desire this reaction as a coping strategy or to persuade them not to take action, while others’ statements appear to truly suggest wanting an appraisal of the event as unremarkable in order to confirm their own beliefs about it. None of the nine participants who disclosed to community helpers sought minimization.
Action and Advocacy
The last overarching theme identified, action or advocacy, can be divided into two subgoals: (1) seeking direct help, accommodations, or advocacy and (2) pursuing corrective action or criminal prosecution. In total, eight participants attributed at least one of their disclosure decisions to motivations related to seeking action or advocacy.
Direct help, accommodations, or advocacy
Six of the 13 participants described at least one of their disclosure decisions as being related to tangible needs or advocacy following the event. Such tangible needs included accessing STD testing or other supportive services (e.g., “I wanted to get tested”; “I think I would’ve wanted um the professor to give me services”). Obtaining advocacy was an especially salient goal discussed by participants. Some participants described needing help with exploring the various options available to them (e.g., “Get some advice about what I should do next”; “have more suggestions about what I could do”; “I guess I don’t know maybe advise me on what I needed to do”; “I was hoping to just um get a lot of explanations cause I really didn’t know what was going on and she did that so”). On the other hand, participants with a better idea of the path they intended to take wanted detailed advice and direct help with pursuing these options as the result of disclosure (e.g., “That she would help me like come forward with it”; “stuff that needed to be known so that proper steps could be taken”; “Kind of just guidance about how to further pursue”; “I was kind of hoping that he would take charge a little more and like help me out”; “probably more assistance…and being able to get more help from and support from our University”). These goals were by and large associated with disclosing to formal supports, with four of the five participants who disclosed to community authorities citing them as well as a little over half of participants who disclosed to community helpers (5:9 participants). Only 2 of the 13 participants attributed an informal disclosure to being motivated by a need for direct help.
Corrective action or criminal prosecution
In total, four participants directly stated a desire to pursue consequences for their perpetrator, with all of these participants referring to a disclosure to a community authority (4:5 participants). Participant statements regarding prosecution were, for example, “I wanted to pursue [prosecution]”; “If there was a problem with the other person, to sit them down and talk to them about it”; “because I didn’t want this person contacting me again”; “I mean I think my goal was to just like figure out who it was or you know to make sure that they wouldn’t be able to do that to anybody else or myself”; “It was to get this person to leave me alone”.
Failure to Identify a Motivation
Around half of participants found their selves either struggling or unable to describe a motivation associated with a particular disclosure decision (5:13 = informal helpers, 2:9 community helpers, 2:5 community authorities). Participants’ difficulties in answering these questions at times are clearly demonstrated (e.g., “I don’t know what I’m trying to say”; “Um, I wasn’t really sure”; “I’m not really sure actually”; “I don’t know what I was hoping I guess when I told them”). A couple participants even described the disclosure as happening by accident (e.g., “I kind of slipped up it wasn’t meant to say anything. It kind of came out”; “to be honest with you I didn’t even want to tell her so I don’t even know what my goal was cause I didn’t want to tell her it just kind of came out”).
Relationship Abuse Versus Sexual Assault Disclosures
Very few differences were noted between motivations for disclosing a relationship abuse event versus a sexual assault event. Sexual assault victims were more likely to know why they decided to disclose to someone, with only two sexual assault victims stating that they were unsure of a motivation associated with a disclosure decision, compared to five victims of relationship abuse. Sexual assault victims were also slightly more likely to describe relationship management as a reason for disclosing. In addition, no victims of relationship abuse reported disclosing due to moral or ethical obligations or being urged to tell by others.
Discussion
Findings demonstrated that victims’ goals around disclosure are varied and perhaps more complex than may have originally been believed. However, four main themes regarding the disclosure of sexual assault and partner abuse to others were identified.
Emotional or Psychological Well-Being
Having a voice/being heard and validation through belief and understanding were highly prominent among participant interviews, with having a voice being the most common subgoal described by participants across all of the major themes. Interestingly, while these goals might appear better aligned with disclosing to informal helpers, they were also strikingly important during the disclosure to formal support systems, including community authorities. These findings highlight that while victims reporting formally may want particular actions to be taken, this might not supersede their emotional needs such as receiving validation of their experience and feelings. They may in fact hope to improve their psychological well-being through the process of reporting, rather than, or in addition to the outcome of reporting. This finding supports and adds to the current literature on the importance of interactional and procedural justice (Laxminarayan, 2012) and the need for trauma-informed and victim-centered community responses and the need to change social norms to be less victim blaming and support the identification of problems like sexual assault (Deming, Covan, Swan, & Billings, 2013; Edwards et al., 2011; Elliott, Bjelajac, Fallot, Markoff, & Reed, 2005).
Similarly, while one would expect that seeking insight about the experience in order to process the event or gain closure would be associated with disclosing to formal helpers such as therapists or crisis center advocates, nearly half of participants also cited this goal when disclosing to informal helpers. This finding supports past research on disclosure rates (Edwards et al., 2011; Fisher et al., 2000), illustrating that victims don’t always seek out professionals when it comes to their therapeutic goals. Instead, victims may reach out to those with whom they feel more comfortable, but who may be less prepared to adequately respond to such disclosures, exposing victims to a host of negative or unhelpful responses (Ahrens & Aldana, 2012; Ullman & Filipas, 2001). Whether they are uncomfortable accessing these formal supports or do not know what formal supports may exist, it presents a clear need for education that helps peers and family members become better equipped to receive such disclosures (Sabina & Ho, 2014).
Social Obligations or Influences
By and large the greatest social obligation or influence associated with disclosing was to maintain or enhance an existing relationship. This was one of the top cited subgoals across themes and was not surprisingly almost entirely related to informal disclosures. A unique facet of this goal was that it shifted the focus from a victim’s own needs to the needs of others. Many victims spoke specifically to being concerned about others’ feelings should they not disclose to them. This internally driven concern for others was much stronger a motivator than being encouraged or pressured by others to tell, or feeling some form of moral obligation. There may be perceived social norms related to disclosure and the maintenance of relationships that are at play here. Alternatively, one could hypothesize that a focus on others might be a distraction from having to process the impact the experience had on one’s self. This is an area that could greatly benefit from more research to determine any additional underlying themes or associations.
Information or Assessment
Seeking information or appraisal of the event was not cited as a goal by as many participants as was expected upon developing an initial coding scheme. Furthermore, the majority of victims who did describe this goal did so in relation to disclosing to informal helpers. This suggests that by the time a victim accesses a community helper or authority, they may have already assessed the event and may be looking to meet more actionable goals. This is consistent with past research on correlates of disclosure to authorities (Patterson & Campbell, 2010; Ullman & Filipas, 2001) as well as research finding that victims typically disclose to an informal helper prior to filing a formal report (Ahrens et al., 2007).
One unexpected finding in this area was participants who specifically stated goals related to wanting the event to be minimized by their recipients of disclosure. While past research has found that assessment of the seriousness of an event is one factor that victims take into consideration when deciding whether or not to disclose (Ahrens et al., 2007; Browne, 1991), it was unclear whether this was being used as an avoidance coping mechanism or if there was a genuine need to confirm their belief that the event was not serious. It might also have to do with perceived pressures to conform to social norms that minimize the presence or seriousness of sexual assault and dating violence (Edwards et al., 2014; Kennedy & Prock, 2016). Due to the nature of the interviews, the underlying mechanism behind this sub-goal could not be identified.
Action and Advocacy
As expected, nearly all of the participants who disclosed to a community authority described wanting corrective action or criminal prosecution. However, this information becomes more nuanced in light of the findings discussed earlier on their psychological and emotional goals associated with these same disclosures. This adds to the literature on what justice means to different victims (Herman, 2005). Furthermore, all of the participants stating a goal of corrective action or prosecution also stated goals related to direct help, accommodations, or advocacy. This finding indicates that “help” does not end with consequences for the perpetrator. Victims appear to be seeking help with other, often tangible, needs in equal numbers when choosing to disclose to authority figures. Seeking help for these needs was also not limited to authorities, with a little more than half of participants describing goals associated with direct help, accommodations, or advocacy when choosing to disclose to community helpers. This suggests that while a professional might traditionally be in a more therapeutic role (e.g., social workers, counselors), victims could disclose to them with the hopes that they will assist them with more tangible needs or advocate on their behalf in various capacities. Helping professionals should be aware of these hopes and be prepared to connect victims to other resources if they are not prepared to help them directly.
Failure to Identify a Motivation and Uncategorized Motivations
Around half of participants found themselves either struggling or unable to describe a motivation associated with a particular disclosure decision. These difficulties were not limited to informal disclosures. Many participants found it difficult to verbalize what they wanted to happen as the result of making a formal disclosure. Often times participants would say they didn’t know why they chose to disclose but would later go on to explain goals associated with the disclosure. It could be that while they are aware of their hopes associated with the disclosure, they have just never had to verbalize them before. Others might have been thinking about their goals for the first time. Many victims also did not or could not clearly describe what receiving adequate support would look like to them. While we cannot ascertain whether they were unable to better define “support” or simply did not feel that further explanation was necessary, it does provoke questions about expectations around support provided by family and peers, and whether victims are sure of their hopes associated with disclosing to them. Given important feminist analyses of how social norms work both to promote forms of unwanted sexual experiences and dating violence as a way of maintaining power over certain groups and work against naming and making these forms of victimization visible, it may not be surprising that some victims had difficulties reflecting on their experiences. Research on trauma-informed interventions indicates the importance of empowerment and advocacy for victims to help them give voice to their experiences (Campbell, 2006; Edwards et al., 2011; Kennedy & Prock, 2016; Koss & Harvey, 1991). This is especially critical information for practitioners, given that victims may not come to them with a clear understanding of their needs following an unwanted experience; rather they may need help in defining and processing their wants and needs following an unwanted experience, including the reasons why they do or do not want to talk with others (e.g., family members, friends, community authorities) about their victimization.
Another issue of note is that all but one participant at some point during the interview expressed goals that could not be categorized. Either their statement was not interpretable, did not fall in line with any trends in the data, or it was too vague to ascertain its meaning. For example, a participant might state that they hoped a disclosure recipient “would care” but did not elaborate on what this meant or would have looked like. While the interviewer did not ask for elaboration, often times the other questions in the interview would bring to light other goals and hopes that could be coded and were probably very much related to their definition of caring. However, for the integrity of the research, these items were coded into an “other” category. This category is a reminder that survivors of violence are diverse and have a range of motivations for disclosing their trauma to others. Community responses need to be grounded in careful listening for the individuality of each survivor and policies need flexibility in response to victims.
Implications
The goal of this study was to add to the literature on disclosure decisions. Qualitative interviews allow for a more nuanced understanding of victims’ goals associated with disclosure. This study helped provide a greater understanding of what a victim is hoping to experience while disclosing or what their desired outcome of disclosing may be, offering valuable insight into a victim’s healing process and needs. This information could be used to both inform professional services for victims (e.g., crisis centers, mental health professionals) and help friends or family members better support victims.
This study, though very small in scale, mirrored rates of disclosure to informal and formal supports reported in past research (Edwards et al., 2011; Fisher et al., 2000). Furthermore, it added to the literature on victim disclosure decisions. While many of the findings were as expected (e.g., disclosing to community authorities in hopes of corrective action or prosecution), other findings were less intuitive and provided a more in-depth understanding of the disclosure goals (e.g., disclosing to community authorities in hopes of being heard and receiving validation). Through understanding the many and different goals that can be associated with disclosure to the same person, we can better understand victims’ potential expectations and thus better meet their needs when possible.
Limitations
While more nuanced data and more humanized experiences can result from person-to-person interviews on these topics, they take considerably longer than surveys to complete and analyze. Thus, fewer participants were recruited for this study, resulting in a very small sample size. In addition to size, the sample for this study was also not particularly diverse. Because all participants were recruited from surveys conducted at New England colleges, they were limited in regard to race and age. The lack of diversity is particularly important to note, given that prior research has suggested that race can have an influence both on experiences after victimization (e.g., perceptions of blame, experiences with community officials, health outcomes) and on disclosure barriers (Brunson & Miller, 2006; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005; Tillman, Bryant-Davis, Smith, & Marks, 2010; Washington, 2001). Also of note, only two participants were male and both discussed experiences of partner abuse, resulting in no males being represented as victims of unwanted sexual experiences. Due to our sample being so distinct in age (college students), geographic location, and gender, we cannot assume that our findings are represented at a national or global scale.
While the interviews conducted were semistructured, they did not allow for significant back and forth interactions between participant and interviewer. Thus, interviewers often did not push much for clarification when an answer given was vague or difficult to understand. This resulted in several statements that were unable to be coded. It also lead to the subgoal “Vaguely described desires for social support” being created. If the interviews had been more flexible, it may have allowed for a more natural conversation to occur and clearer coding of some participant responses.
Future Research
Future research would benefit from larger and more diverse samples. Young children may differ greatly in their hopes than college students or adults. Similarly, transgender, sexual minority, or male victims may have goals or needs that differ in ways this study could not capture. These potential differences could advance our current understanding and are important to investigate in future research. By including wider age ranges, multiple geographical locations, and more genders, patterns may form that could help more specific populations get the aid or support that would be most beneficial to them.
This study asked participants to choose one victimization experience to talk about (if they had more than one, they were asked to speak of the experience they thought was most significant for them). Therefore, participants may have experienced several different types of victimization. Future research should examine victims of multiple forms of violence to see if there are patterns related to polyvictimization. Participants were also not asked during interviews about multiple occurrences of the same form of victimization or for how long it may have persisted. Future research should examine issues related to duration and severity and any potential impact they might have on victim goals.
Lastly, future research might ask victims to rank their goals associated with disclosing. All goals stated were coded and often several codes were assigned per recipient of disclosure. However, participants were not asked which of the different motivations and hopes that they discussed were most important to them. For example, the researchers were surprised to learn that goals associated with psychological well-being were mentioned just as often as those associated with punishment when participants described reporting to community authorities. However, what was not captured was which of these goals might be primary or if both held equal weight in contributing to a victim’s satisfaction with the disclosure. More research in this area is necessary.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.