Andrea Mariani
Project Update: Development and Validation of the Himpathy Scale: A Tool for Identification of Bias in Campus Sexual Assault Cases
The last few months were fruitful for our research. We collected data from approximately 1,200 participants and completed the analyses required for our scale validation. Our results show that the himpathy scale has good internal and external validity. In other words, the scale is effective at assessing himpathy, rather than a related construct (such as sexist beliefs, for example). We are in the process of running the last analysis, which will give us information about the predictive power of our scale. Specifically, we are trying to understand whether a higher score on the himpathy scale predicts how one views allegations of sexual assault.
The followings are the questions that will be answered by such analysis:
- Does a higher score on the himpathy scale predict more victim blaming?
- Does a higher score on the himpathy scale predict less punishment for the perpetrator?
- Importantly, are these phenomena dependent on the gender of both the perpetrator and victim?
- Does the himpathy scale do a better job at predicting the outcomes above compared to other related scales?
In addition to this last analysis, we have started to write the first of two papers that will describe our study. This first paper focuses on the theory of himpathy and the evidence of the construct in the extant literature, and it highlights the need for a measurement tool. Our second paper will be focused on the actual study.
My plans for the upcoming year include applying for a conference where to present our results, finishing to write our theoretical paper and submitting it for publication.
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