Abstract
This study seeks to provide current evidence on the role of political ideology on shaping retrospective reporting of sexual violence (SV) in the United States. We used cross-sectional, nationally representative data from the online 2024 #MeToo Survey among U.S. adults (N = 3,350). We found that liberal women were more likely and conservative women and gender diverse adults were less likely to report lifetime SV, relative to moderates. Effects for past 12 months SV were not observed. This nationally representative evidence suggests that lifetime SV experiences and reporting may differ based on political ideology among U.S. women and gender diverse adults.
Introduction
Sexual harassment, reported by 78% of women and 29% of men, and sexual assault, reported by 27% of women and 8% of men, are prevalent and pernicious in the United States (Raj et al., 2024). Risk for sexual harassment (i.e., harassment in a sexual way that makes the victim feel uncomfortable) and sexual assault (i.e., completed or attempted penetration through the use of force, threats, or when consent is not provided) is especially concentrated for women and gender diverse (i.e., nonbinary, gender non-conforming, transgender) people, racial/ethnic minorities, and young people (Basile et al., 2022). Attention to these experiences and willingness to label such experiences as sexual violence (SV) has grown substantially since the #MeToo movement accelerated in 2017 with survivors of SV speaking out about their experiences and perpetrators of SV being held accountable for their behavior.
A person's acknowledgement and labeling of an SV experience as such varies greatly across society, with some finding affirmation in acknowledgement of their experience and others rejecting such acknowledgement or labels (Peterson & Muehlenhard, 2011). Labeling of one's SV experience is understood as a reflection of how an individual makes sense of their experience based on, for example, societal beliefs, gender socialization, community support, stigma and shame, knowledge about what constitutes SV, and their relationship with the perpetrator (Canan et al., 2023; Harned, 2005; Peterson & Muehlenhard, 2011). Recent research by Edwards et al. (2025) suggests that labeling of SV experiences may change over time, often with survivors’ use of the label “sexual assault” decreasing over time but use of labels for other forms of SV, like sexual harassment, increasing. This research contributes to how scientists think about self-report bias when it comes to measurement of SV in surveys; survey research assessing experiences of SV may not be able to disentangle differences in underlying prevalences of SV from a person's recognition and acknowledgement of SV experiences (Edwards et al., 2025).
One area in which this phenomenon has been explored is by looking at differences in reports of SV by political ideology. Political ideology may be an important factor related to whether one acknowledges an SV experience, given that a person's political ideology often reflects their societal beliefs and values and often includes socially constructed narratives about why social phenomenon, including experiences like SV, occur. Previous research in global contexts has documented that right-wing political orientation is associated with greater SV myth acceptance and lower rejection of sexist remarks, and this association is strongest for men with right-wing political orientation (Ortiz-Bonnin et al., 2025). Social identity theory posits that identification with social groups, such as political parties, shapes individual-level beliefs and behavior in ways that may influence how one perceives their experiences (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). As individuals identify more strongly with their political group, especially in the current conditions of strong political polarization surrounding the 2024 election, individual adoption of a political group's ideology and narratives may be more deeply internalized in one's identity in order to display allegiance and distinguish from the oppositional political group (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).
The hypothesis that political ideology differences in SV may be related to differences in reporting of SV experiences in a survey is supported by previous research conducted in the immediate wake of the #MeToo movement. This research has documented notable political differences in the narrative about SV experiences and why they occur. Extensive research has provided evidence that liberals (i.e., Democrat-leaning people) express greater concerns about experiences of SV, have attitudes that attribute less blame to SV victims, and greater appreciation for the value of the #MeToo movement (Conroy, 2019; Costa et al., 2020; Genschow et al., 2021; Jackson et al., 2018; Ortiz et al. 2021; van der Linden & Panagopoulos, 2019) compared to conservatives (i.e., Republican-leaning people). In contrast, conservative ideology has been found to be associated with greater acceptance of victim-blaming myths, traditional masculinity, and rejection of the #MeToo movement (Genschow et al., 2021; Ortiz et al., 2021; Ortiz-Bonnin et al., 2025; McDermott et al., 2021). Moreover, experimental studies show that conservatives are less likely than liberals to correctly identify instances of sexual harassment against women in vignettes (Gothreau et al., 2022). It follows, then, that two previous studies have demonstrated an association between political ideology and reports of SV in surveys. One study found that conservative-leaning men and women are less likely than liberal-leaning men and women, respectively, to report experiences of sexual assault, and conservative-leaning men were less likely to report physically aggressive sexual harassment (Jose et al., 2021). Another study found that conservative-leaning women were less likely than liberal-leaning women to report sexual harassment (Gothreau et al., 2022). Gender diverse individuals were not included in either study (Gothreau et al., 2022, Jose et al., 2021). Yet more research is needed to explore such differences; the aforementioned studies are limited in that they did not examine effects among an important population that experiences especially high risk for SV—gender diverse adults—and they only examine recent, not lifetime, reports of SV, the latter of which may provide further clarity on how political ideology may relate to survey disclosure of SV experiences that happened long ago.
Another explanation of differences in SV based on political ideology may be actual underlying differences in the incidence of SV. Based on Pew national estimates for 2024, about one quarter of conservative adults vs. just about half of liberal adults are non-White (i.e., a minority race/ethnicity), a sociodemographic group known to be at higher risk for SV (Pew, 2024a; Raj et al., 2024). Additionally, only 12% of sexually diverse (i.e., lesbian, gay bisexual) women and 17% of sexually diverse men identity as conservative leaning while 83% of sexually diverse adults are liberal leaning, another sociodemographic group known to be at higher risk for SV (Pew, 2024b; Raj et al., 2024). It may be that the true underlying lifetime prevalence of SV is different across women of liberal, moderate, and conservative political ideologies based on the sociodemographic composition of these groups that confers differential risk for SV. Confounder adjustment for these sociodemographic differences across political ideology is necessary to control for the differential risk for SV based on sociodemographics, an approach facilitated by research using large, nationally representative samples.
This study offers a recent examination of political preference as a factor potentially influencing reports of sexual harassment and assault in the United States, 7 years after the start of the #MeToo movement, by inspecting recent and lifetime reports of SV controlling for sociodemographics known to be associated with risk for SV. Further, we focus our analysis on a political group that has received less attention in prior research, political moderates, using this group as a reference, rather than a political opposite. We hypothesize, based on previous research, that liberal-identifying adults will be more likely to report SV and conservative-identifying adults will be less likely to report SV compared to moderate-identifying adults. We expect this will be true for men, women, and gender diverse adults. These findings can help guide consideration of how to approach bipartisan efforts to address sexual harassment and assault in the United States with consideration of the narratives each political ideology holds regarding experiences of SV. Recent evidence suggests risk for SV has not abated since the #MeToo movement started in 2018 (Raj et al., 2024), reinforcing calls for greater evidence to guide work that can address this concern.
Methods
We used cross-sectional data from the 2024 #MeToo Survey, a national online survey focused on experiences of sexual harassment (Raj et al., 2024). The survey targeted U.S. adults aged 18 and older, using a combination of NORC at the University of Chicago's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel and the non-probability-based (Lucid) panel to achieve the desired sample size. This method ensured representation of adults across the United States, specifically focusing on four states: California, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Panel participants were not told the title of the survey in order to not introduce bias in those who opted into this survey, but were told the survey would be on harassment, domestic violence, and abuse. The response rate for this survey was 24%, which is in the range typical of online probability surveys (Nulty, 2008). All study procedures were reviewed and approved by institutional review boards at the University of Chicago and University of California San Diego.
The #MeToo survey took approximately 15 minutes to complete, and participants were compensated approximately US$5 for their time. All participants provided written consent to NORC for inclusion at the time of panel enrollment. Participants were able to opt out of the panel and survey at any time, including while completing the survey. Given the sensitivity of the questions about violence, substance use, and mental health, we provided hotline numbers for domestic violence, SV, and mental health at the end of the survey, regardless of participant responses to these questions.
NORC supports and administers its panels through household sampling, inviting selected households to participate via U.S. mail, phone calls, and in-person field interviews. The AmeriSpeak panel covers approximately 97% of U.S. households, enabling NORC to deliver a survey-weighted final sample that accurately represents U.S. adults by gender, age, race/ethnicity, income, education, employment status, and geographic region. Further details on the methods and weighting are discussed in NORC's “Project Methods and Transparency Report” (NORC, 2024). The total sample consisted of 3,383 adults; complete data for this study comes from 3,350 adults (1768 women, 1501 men, and 81 gender diverse adults).
Measures
Our primary dependent variables focused on sexual harassment and assault. The survey included 16 questions regarding sexual harassment and assault. Participants were asked to indicate if any of 16 sexually harassing and abusive experiences had occurred to them “ever” or “in the past year,” using yes/no responses (Table 1). Items were adapted from the Composite Abuse Scale (Revised)-Short Form (CASR-SF) and from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Ford-Gilboe et al., 2016; Kresnow et al., 2021). These experiences were classified into five categories: verbal harassment, dating or sexual coercion, cyber sexual harassment, physically aggressive sexual harassment, and sexual assault, for both “ever” and “past year” experiences, resulting in 10 dependent variables. Although not exhaustive, these 16 forms of sexual harassment were chosen to reflect the most invasive forms of sexual harassment.
Survey Items on Sexual Harassment and Assault.
Our primary independent variable was political ideology, using an item which asked participants to define their political positioning as either “Unknown,” “very liberal,” “somewhat liberal,” “moderate,” “somewhat conservative,” of “very conservative.” Participants who selected “unknown” were considered to have missing data.
Analyses were stratified by gender (men, women, gender diverse). Gender diverse included those who identified as transgender, nonbinary or other gender non-conforming. Other sociodemographic characteristics were included as covariates in our models based on previous research indicating associations with political ideology and SV. These were age (18–29, 30–44, 45–59, 60+ years), race/ethnicity (White, non-Hispanic; Black, non-Hispanic; Hispanic; two or more races, non-Hispanic; Asian-Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic), income (less than $30,000; $30,000 to less than $60,000; $60,000 to less than $100,000; $100,000 or more), employment status (yes/no), disability (yes/no), sexual orientation (heterosexual, gay/lesbian, bisexual, and other), rural/urban, and region of the country.
Data Analysis
Descriptive statistics were utilized to determine weighted means, standard deviations, and percentages for the sample, stratified by political ideology and gender. We conducted correlation analyses to confirm no collinearity across our independent variable and covariates. Sample characteristics by political ideology are shown in Table 2. We conducted gender-stratified logistic regression models to examine the associations between political ideology (5-level variable) and each type of sexual harassment and sexual assault, adjusting for covariates, among men and women, separately.
Sample Characteristics by Political Ideology (N = 3,350).
Sample weights applied in calculating percents to provide nationally representative estimates.
In exploratory analyses for the small subsample of gender diverse adults, we combined all forms of SV into a single dependent variable and constructed political ideology into a three-level variable (liberal, moderate, conservative) for use in an unadjusted logistic regression model to examine the association between political ideology and any SV, ever and in the last 12 months, among gender diverse adults. Adjusted models with gender diverse adults did not converge due to small cell sizes so were not included. All data were weighted to yield population representative estimates. A complete case analysis was conducted and analyses were conducted in Stata 17 Statistical Software (StataCorp., 2021).
Results
The sample was diverse in terms of political ideology, with 11.4% identifying as very liberal, 11.8% identifying as somewhat liberal, 50.2% as moderate, 16.0% as somewhat conservative, and 10.6% as very conservative. Among liberal-identifying adults, 41.2% were men, 55.2% women, and 3.6% gender diverse. Among moderate-identifying adults, 45.3% were men, 51.9% women, and 2.8% gender diverse. Among conservative-identifying adults, 55.3% were men, 43.7% women, and 1.1% gender diverse (Table 2).
Among women, the most prevalent form of sexual harassment was verbal harassment (77.6% lifetime, 27.4% in the past year), followed by physically aggressive sexual harassment (59.4% lifetime, 10.6% in the past year), dating and sexual coercion (49.7% lifetime, 11.4% in the past year), and cyber sexual harassment (31.2% lifetime, 8.1% in the past year). Lifetime sexual assault was reported by 27.2% of women, with 2% of women reporting past year sexual assault (Table 3). Prevalence of sexual harassment and assault was lower for men than women, but the most common forms of harassment were similar for men and women. Among men, the most prevalent form of sexual harassment was verbal harassment (28.7% lifetime, 9.4% in the past year), followed by dating and sexual coercion harassment (23.8% lifetime, 6.7% in the past year), physically aggressive sexual (21.3% lifetime, 5% in the past year), and cyber sexual harassment (14.5% lifetime, 5.7% in the past year). Among men, 8% reported lifetime sexual assault and 1.4% past year sexual assault (Table 3). Among gender diverse adults, 77.1% reported experiencing at least one form of SV in their lifetime, 46.8% in the past year (Table 4).
Lifetime and Past Year Sexual Harassment and Assault by Political Ideology for Women and Men (N = 3,269).
Sample weights applied in calculating percents to provide nationally representative estimates.
Lifetime and Past Year Sexual Violence (All Types Combined) by Political Ideology Among Gender Diverse Respondents (n = 81). a
Abbreviations: SV, sexual violence; wt, weighted.
Due to limited cell sizes all forms of sexual violence were combined into a single variable and political ideology was grouped as liberal, moderate, and conservative only.
Sample weights applied in calculating percents to provide nationally representative estimates.
Unadjusted models assessing the association between political ideology and reports of lifetime experiences of SV among gender diverse adults demonstrated significant differences across political ideology (Table 5). Conservative gender diverse adults were significantly less likely to report lifetime SV, relative to moderates [odds ratio (OR) = 0.14; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.02, 0.91; P-value = .04]. No significant differences were found for liberals or past-year reports. Given small cell sizes, these results are exploratory and should be interpreted with caution.
Unadjusted Logistic Regression Models of Political Ideology and Reports of Any Sexual Violence Among Gender Diverse Respondents (n = 81). a
Note: *** if P < 0.01, ** if P < 0.05.
Abbreviations: CI, confidence intervals; OR, odds ratio; Ref, reference; SV, sexual violence.
Due to limited cell sizes all forms of sexual violence were combined into a single variable.
Adjusted models analyzing the association between political ideology and reports of lifetime experiences of sexual harassment or assault among women and men separately showed significant effects (Table 6). Among women, those who identified as somewhat liberal versus moderate were more likely to report experiencing verbal harassment [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.92; 95% CI: 1.24, 2.95). Moreover, there was a lower likelihood of reported verbal harassment among those who identified as somewhat conservative (AOR = 0.63; 95% CI: 0.46, 0.87) and very conservative (AOR = 0.50; 95% CI: 0.35, 0.72), compared with moderates. Those who were very conservative compared with moderates were less likely to report dating or sexual coercion (AOR = 0.68; 95% CI: 0.48, 0.96). Those who were somewhat liberal compared to moderate were more likely to report physically aggressive sexual harassment (AOR = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.96), and those who were somewhat conservative (OR = 0.66; CI: 0.50, 0.88) or very conservative (AOR = 0.64; 95% CI: 0.46, 0.90) were less likely to report physically aggressive harassment. Those who were somewhat liberal compared to moderate were more likely to report sexual assault (AOR = 1.44, 95% CI: 1.05, 1.99), and those who were very conservative compared with moderate were less likely to report sexual assault (AOR = 0.64; 95% CI: 0.41, 0.98). No significant effects of political ideology on cyber sexual harassment were observed for women. Among men, findings were more limited and were observed only in terms of greater risk for reporting physically aggressive sexual harassment for very liberal (AOR = 1.50, 95% CI: 1.02, 2.19) and for somewhat liberal (AOR = 1.65, 95% CI: 1.11, 2.45) versus moderate men. Smaller cell sizes may have limited the power to detect effects among men.
Adjusted Logistic Regression Models of Political Ideology on Lifetime Sexual Harassment and Assault Among Women and Men (N = 3,269).
Note: *** if P < .01, ** if P < .05, * if P < .10.
Abbreviations: AOR, adjusted odds ratio; CI, confidence interval.
Adjusted models analyzing the association between political ideology and past-year reporting of experiences of sexual harassment or assault showed no significant effects for women (Table 7). For men, we see significantly greater risk for reporting sexual assault among very liberal compared with moderate men (AOR = 3.03, 95% CI: 1.02, 9.01), but no significant patterns otherwise. Smaller cell sizes due to lower reports of sexual harassment and assault among men may have affected power to detect significant effects.
Adjusted Logistic Regression Models of Political Ideology on Past Year Sexual Harassment and Assault Among Women and Men (N = 3,269).
Note: *** if P < .01, ** if P < .05, * if P < .10.
Abbreviations: AOR, adjusted odds ratio; CI, confidence interval.
Discussion
Findings from this study indicated higher odds of reporting lifetime SV for liberal women and lower odds of reporting among conservative women, relative to moderate women, but no differences for past 12 months experiences of SV. No known previous nationally representative studies have reported on both lifetime and past 12-month SV, but previous research has found conservative women to be more reticent in acknowledging their experiences as harassment or assault while more liberal women are more comfortable acknowledging their experiences in these ways (Gothreau et al., 2022, Jose et al., 2021). It may be the case that the observed association between political ideology and reporting SV among women is most relevant to retrospective perceptions of these experiences over a longer period of time, and less relevant to interpretation of experiences that occurred in a more recent period.
Similarly, for gender diverse adults, conservatives were less likely to report lifetime SV experiences compared to moderates. No known previous research has assessed the relationship between political ideology and SV among gender diverse populations. While these results are exploratory and should be interpreted with caution due to small cell sizes and lack of confounder adjustment in estimates, these results motivate a need to include this subpopulation in U.S. research studying political ideology and SV, especially given their known high risk for SV.
The main results among women have multiple possible explanations. First, the underlying incidence of these forms of SV may be different between women of different political ideologies. Reflective of the Pew national estimates for 2024, the year of this data collection, this study estimates that 26.4% of conservative adults while 45.8% of liberal adults are non-White (i.e., a minority race/ethnicity) and only 3.2% of conservative adults while 22.5% of liberal adults are sexually expansive (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual), two sociodemographic groups under-represented in the conservative sample and over-represented in the liberal sample known to be at higher risk for SV (Pew, 2024b). It may be that the true underlying lifetime prevalence of SV is different across women of liberal, moderate, and conservative political ideologies based on the sociodemographic composition of these groups that confers differential risk for SV. Of important note, though, we controlled for gender, race/ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, income in these analyses, so with sufficient confounder adjustment, the different composition of these groups should not have influenced these results. Moreover, reports of past 12-month experiences of SV did not differ across these three groups when controlling for these sociodemographics, suggesting that differences in underlying risk for SV likely do not fully explain the observed differences in lifetime reporting of SV observed in this study.
A second explanation may be related to social identity theory and differences in acknowledgement of experiences of SV among women and gender diverse people of different political preferences (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). While prevalence of SV in the past 12 months were similar across all political ideologies among women, with time, acknowledgement and perceptions of the experience may be interpreted differently, in a way that relates to integration of social identity, beliefs, and behavior based on political preference. Previous research has demonstrated that compared to individuals who identify as liberal and independent, more conservative-leaning men and women are significantly more likely to accept SV-related myths related to victim-blaming and are less likely to perceive sexual assault as a serious issue (Genschow et al., 2021; Ortiz et al., 2021). This may contribute to shame and stigma, as well as minimization of such experiences among conservative women, especially over time, that may influence how they may acknowledge these experiences in a survey. In contrast, liberal-leaning women have been found to have the highest levels of concern about SV and ability to correctly characterize a lab-simulated vignette as sexual harassment, which may, over time, amplify the identification and acknowledgement of such experiences (Gothreau et al., 2022; Ortiz et al., 2021). Qualitative research is needed to understand this phenomenon better.
Significant findings for men in these analyses were more limited. While greater odds of reporting physically aggressive sexual harassment were observed for liberal versus moderate men, no significant effects for conservative compared with moderate men were observed. For sexual assault, we did find indication of increased odds of reporting sexual assault in the past year for very liberal men compared with moderate men. While the results correspond with previous research from 2018, which found higher likelihood of reporting physically aggressive sexual harassment and sexual assault among liberal compared to conservative men, the current results do not confirm the previous findings which found conservative men to be less likely to report these forms of sexual harassment and assault compared with more liberal men (Raj et al. 2024). More research is needed to help clarify the relationships between political ideology and SV among men, a subpopulation that experiences substantial amounts of stigma in acknowledging SV victimization (Farmer et al., 2024; Hlavka, 2016). Our findings suggest that the stigma against self-reporting SV victimization among men may be felt similarly across moderate and conservative men, but may be experienced slightly less for liberal men versus moderate men, given the observed significant differences. A larger sample may be helpful to exploring this further, as reporting these forms of violence were relatively low across all men in the sample. Additionally, previous research may have had more statistical power to detect differences when comparing only liberal and conservative men, as the current study sought to compare liberal and conservatives to moderate men, a more neutral reference group. Future research with larger samples of men or with higher prevalences of SV reported among men would be useful for studying effect modification by gender, as has been shown to be important in previous related research (Ortiz-Bonnin et al., 2025).
Limitations
This study is not without limitations. Reports of political leaning were self-reported and self-defined; no standard definition of conservative, moderate, or liberal was provided in the question and a more objective measurement, like voting history, was not assessed. Such self-reporting may best reflect respondents’ overall political ideology, though, as it relates to their interpretation of their life experiences, and thus might be useful for this research question. Similarly, this study relies on self-reports of sexual harassment and assault, which cannot disentangle experiences of SV vs. willingness to acknowledge SV experiences, the latter of which is most relevant to this research question. The data collection used best practices in measuring SV by asking about experiences with specific behaviors rather than questions that ask if the participant has experienced SV or not. Nevertheless, acknowledgement and actual experiences of SV behaviors are difficult to disentangle. Additionally, in terms of measurement, we limited measurement to 16 forms of sexual harassment to not overburden respondents with questions and to capture the most invasive forms of sexual harassment, yet this measurement did not include non-verbal and non-physical forms of sexual harassment. We hypothesize that if we had included reporting of these more subtle forms of sexual harassment that are more likely to be shaped by interpretation of the respondent, it may have further strengthened differences observed by political ideology.
The direction of the relationship between political ideology and SV cannot be determined and it is possible that, especially for lifetime SV estimates, SV occurred prior to political ideology formation. We chose to include political ideology as a predictor based on prior literature and an assumption that it preceded past 12-month SV experiences. Lastly, while we were able to include gender diverse adults in an exploratory analysis, it was a modified and limited analysis due to the small subsample size and precision is limited. Research with larger representation of the gender diverse population is necessary to assess political ideology and reports of sexual harassment and assaults controlling for covariates within this population, given high rates of violence and data from this study indicating important differences (Raj et al., 2023).
Conclusion
Results from this research provide current nationally representative evidence that U.S. women and gender diverse adults who identify as politically conservative report less lifetime experiences of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Relative to moderate women, conservative women are less likely and somewhat liberal women are more likely to report lifetime experiences of SV. Similarly, relative to moderates, conservative gender diverse adults were less likely to report lifetime SV. This effect seems to be particularly pronounced for lifetime reports of violence among women but does not hold for past year reports of SV among women or for reports of SV among conservative men. These findings uncover an important source of potential bias for research studying lifetime experiences of violence among women and gender diverse adults. Moreover, and of practical significance, more conservative women and gender diverse adults may be less willing to acknowledge their past experience of SV and may, therefore, be less likely to access support that could help them to cope with these experiences.
Additionally, these results may help inform bipartisan approaches to addressing SV, suggesting that women and gender diverse adults with more conservative ideology may be less inclined to acknowledge the impact of past experiences of sexual harassment and assault. As women are often the voices in political parties and social spaces to speak to issues of SV, and to push for prevention efforts and legislation, this research suggests there may be differential attention given to this issue based on political leanings.
Footnotes
Ethical Considerations
All study procedures were reviewed and approved by institutional review boards at the University of Chicago and University of California San Diego.
Consent to Participate
All participants provided written consent to NORC for inclusion at the time of panel enrollment. Participants can opt out of the panel and the CalVEX survey entirely or at any time during survey participation.
Consent for Publication
Not applicable.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by Newcomb Institute, with additional funding support from Stop Street Harassment, ValorUS®, RALIANCE, and private donations.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.