The Under-Reporting of College Sexual Assault and The Role of Social Norms

Last registered on January 02, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Under-Reporting of College Sexual Assault and The Role of Social Norms
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015001
Initial registration date
December 16, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 02, 2025, 9:42 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Texas A&M University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-11-29
End date
2025-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This project investigates the causes of under-reporting for college sexual assault by examining the impacts of both a survey technique designed to provide plausible deniability and the salience of social norms on reporting rates. I designed a 2x2 online survey experiment in which subjects complete two primary tasks on social norms and experience with sexual assault. In the social norm task, subjects complete an incentivized social norm elicitation exercise, where they predict the percentage of previous survey respondents (men and women) who agree with statements suggesting that women reporting sexual assault are partly responsible for what happened or are lying about the assault. In the experience task, subjects complete binary questions on their experience with either sexual assault perpetration or victimization. I vary: 1) whether survey responses on victimization and perpetration are recorded using direct elicitation or “hard-garbling,” and 2) the order in which subjects complete the two tasks. I assess the impacts of the survey technique and of the salience of social norms, as proxied by whether subjects complete the social norm task first or second, on reporting rates and investigate the level of misperception of social norms.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Johnston, Kennedy. 2025. "The Under-Reporting of College Sexual Assault and The Role of Social Norms." AEA RCT Registry. January 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15001-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
I designed a 2x2 online survey experiment in which subjects complete two primary tasks on social norms and experience with sexual assault. In the social norm task, subjects complete an incentivized social norm elicitation exercise. I present subjects with two statements: one suggesting that women reporting sexual assault are partly responsible for what happened, and the other questioning whether the woman is lying about the assault. Participants are asked to predict the percentage of previous survey respondents (men and women) who agreed with each statement. In the experience task, subjects answer binary questions on their experience with either sexual assault perpetration or victimization. All men are asked about sexual assault perpetration, and all women are asked about sexual assault victimization. I vary: 1) whether survey responses on victimization and perpetration are recorded using direct elicitation or “hard-garbling,” and 2) the order in which subjects complete the experience and the social norm tasks. In the hard-garbling survey technique, a subset of responses to a binary question (on either victimization or perpetration of sexual assault) are randomly recorded as “Yes” responses, regardless of the true response. This randomization provides respondents with plausible deniability, as researchers – or anyone else viewing the data – cannot know for sure whether a “Yes” response was truly a “Yes” or an intended “No.” I also vary the salience of individual perceptions of social norms related to reported assaults by experimentally manipulating whether subjects complete the social norm task before or after answering the questions on personal experiences of sexual assault.
Intervention Start Date
2024-12-17
Intervention End Date
2025-03-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Normalized recorded reports for sexual assault victimization – rape (women only)
2. Normalized recorded reports for sexual assault victimization – other nonconsensual sexual contact (women only)
3. Normalized recorded reports for sexual assault perpetration – rape (men only)
4. Normalized recorded reports for sexual assault perpetration – other nonconsensual sexual contact (men only)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The victimization and perpetration questions are binary. In this experiment, the rate of garbling is set to 20% for hard-garbling treatments; this rate is 0% for direct elicitation treatments. For individuals in hard-garbling treatments, I observe a garbled response rather than the intended response. I will define normalized recorded reports as: (recorded response – the garbling rate) / (1 – the garbling rate).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1. Misperception of women’s agreement with victim-blaming
2. Misperception of men’s agreement with victim-blaming
3. Misperception of women’s agreement with lying
4. Misperception of men’s agreement with lying
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Actual social norms will be defined as the share of respondents with agree with the social norm statements. An individual’s misperception of the norm will be calculated as the difference between their perceived norm and the actual norm.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The survey experiment will involve individuals aged 18-27 that indicate being either current undergraduate students or recent college graduates. These individuals are recruited via Prolific.

The survey consists of two primary tasks on social norms and experience. The social norm task contains questions on agreement with social norm statements and predictions of what other people think. The predictions will be incentivized, and subjects will be paid $0.25 for each correct guess. The experience task contains binary questions on sexual assault experiences. Note that all men will be asked about sexual assault perpetration, and all women will be asked about victimization. The basic experiment is a 2x2 design in which I vary which survey technique is used and what order subjects complete the tasks.

I randomly assign participants into one of four treatment conditions:
• T1: Less Salient Social Norms, Direct Elicitation
• T2: Less Salient Social Norms, Hard-Garbling
• T3: Salient Social Norms, Direct Elicitation
• T4: Salient Social Norms, Hard-Garbling
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is done by the software system.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
3,200 individuals
Sample size: planned number of observations
3,200 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1,600 men and 1,600 women; 400 men and 400 women in each treatment arm:
• T1: Less Salient Social Norms, Direct Elicitation
• T2: Less Salient Social Norms, Hard-Garbling
• T3: Salient Social Norms, Direct Elicitation
• T4: Salient Social Norms, Hard-Garbling
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Texas A&M University Internal Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2024-11-11
IRB Approval Number
STUDY2024-1379