The main goal of the project is to develop a scale to assess degrees of himpathy, an excessive
sympathy unconsciously extended to certain perpetrators of sexual violence, so that it can be
used to decrease sexual violence on campuses and other communities through different
mechanisms (e.g., selecting Title IX officers and individuals involved with development of
campus policies to prevent sexual violence, selecting jurors and legal professionals involved in
sexual violence cases, and many others).
The development of the Himpathy Scale has so far progressed as expected. Most of the work has
involved the theoretical structuring of himpathy for scale development purposes and the writing
of items (sentences) that can fully capture the construct. For example, what are sub-constructs
that make-up himpathy based on how it was first described? And what sentences would represent
such sub-constructs? We included the following sub-constructs and came up with sentences to
represent them: ‘centering the perpetrator’, ‘temporal sympathy’, and ‘loyalty to
perpetrator/willful ignorance’. After many rounds of edits, I am now collaborating with Dr. Kate
Manne, who originally coined and described the construct of himpathy, to finalize the scale so
that it can be used for my first study.
The next steps involve finalizing the scale based on expert review and submitting Study 1 for
IRB approval. We seem to be on track to start implementing Study 1 in January and begin data
collection.
sympathy unconsciously extended to certain perpetrators of sexual violence, so that it can be
used to decrease sexual violence on campuses and other communities through different
mechanisms (e.g., selecting Title IX officers and individuals involved with development of
campus policies to prevent sexual violence, selecting jurors and legal professionals involved in
sexual violence cases, and many others).
The development of the Himpathy Scale has so far progressed as expected. Most of the work has
involved the theoretical structuring of himpathy for scale development purposes and the writing
of items (sentences) that can fully capture the construct. For example, what are sub-constructs
that make-up himpathy based on how it was first described? And what sentences would represent
such sub-constructs? We included the following sub-constructs and came up with sentences to
represent them: ‘centering the perpetrator’, ‘temporal sympathy’, and ‘loyalty to
perpetrator/willful ignorance’. After many rounds of edits, I am now collaborating with Dr. Kate
Manne, who originally coined and described the construct of himpathy, to finalize the scale so
that it can be used for my first study.
The next steps involve finalizing the scale based on expert review and submitting Study 1 for
IRB approval. We seem to be on track to start implementing Study 1 in January and begin data
collection.
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