CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 72Sexual Assault and Victimization StudiesIntimate Partner and Family ViolenceStalking, Cyberstalking, and Harassment

Who do They Tell? College Students’ Formal and Informal Disclosure of Sexual Violence, Sexual Harassment, Stalking, and Dating Violence by Gender, Sexual Identity, and Race

Mennicke, Annelise, Coates, Constance Austin, Jules, Bridget, Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Jennifer·2022·Journal of Interpersonal Violence
DOI 10.1177/08862605211050107
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Disclosure of interpersonal violence (i.e., sexual violence, sexual harassment, dating violence, and stalking) is often the first step toward receiving social and systemic support. Research demonstrates that sexual assault and dating violence survivors on college campuses are more likely to disclosure to informal sources (i.e., friends and family) than formal sources (e.g., police, Title IX, counseling centers). However, there is limited research examining disclosure rates after other forms of violence (i.e., stalking, sexual harassment), and little is known about the impact of the survivors' identities on disclosure. Utilizing four academic years (2016-2019) of aggregated campus climate data from a large Southeastern university, the current study examined rates of disclosure across experiences of sexual violence, sexual harassment, dating violence, and stalking while identifying whether the prevalence and type of disclosure (formal versus informal-only) differed by gender, sexual orientation, and/or race/ethnicity. Of 8,017 participants, 4.6% reported sexual violence, 18.9% reported sexual harassment, 12.3% reported dating violence, and 11.3% reported stalking in the past academic year. Results of multinomial logistic regression indicated that, across all four types of violence, men (as compared to women) had lower odds of disclosing both informally-only and formally. Bisexual as compared to heterosexual students had higher odds of formal disclosure of sexual harassment and stalking while gay/lesbian students had higher odds of formally disclosing sexual harassment. Individuals of another race/ethnicity (compared to White students) had lower odds of informal-only disclosure of dating violence. Findings underscore the need to implement programs to improve the social reactions of friends and family members receiving disclosures, and to increase culturally-tailored service provision.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/08862605211050107

Cites

50 of 50 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • A substantial proportion of young people who become victims of sexual violence do not disclose their experiences to anyone.

    “Despite the potential benefits of disclosure, a substantial proportion of young people who become victims of sexual violence do not disclose their experiences to anyone (e.g., Maschke & Stecher, 2021; Mennicke et al., 2022).”

    From Why They Speak Up (or Don’t): Reasons For and Against Cybergrooming Disclosure Among Adolescent Victims (2025) · cites this paper as Mennicke et al., 2022

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 51 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Mennicke, A., Coates, C. A., Jules, B., & Langhinrichsen-Rohling, J.
Affiliations
  • University of North Carolina at Charlotte (US)
  • University of North Carolina at Charlotte
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2021-11-19
Volume
37
Issue
21-22
Pages
NP20092-NP20119
ISSN
  • 0886-2605 (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-6518
DOI
10.1177/08862605211050107
OpenAlex
W3211346021
Cited by
72
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 5
FWCI
12.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Journal of Interpersonal Violence (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (K01CE003160)
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Cooperative Agreement (U01CE002668)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies
  • Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Stalking, Cyberstalking, and Harassment
Keywords
sexual violence, sexual harassment, stalking, dating violence, university students, gender differences, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, campus climate, Title IX
MeSH terms
Intimate Partner Violence, Female, Humans, Male, Sex Offenses, Students, Sexual Harassment, Crime Victims, Disclosure, Stalking

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review