Evaluating the Efficacy of a New Sexual Violence Prevention Program with College Students

This research project will develop, deliver, and assess the efficacy of a new sexual violence (SV) prevention program for college students. The MOON program (Moving ON against sexual violence) aims to prevent sexual violence amongst university students, who are known to be an at-risk population for this form of violence. The MOON program follows a bystander approach, aiming to teach and capacitate young adults to be active agents of prevention within their communities. To do so, the program combines education on several SV-related topics with skills-training activities. Throughout five online sessions, the participants will be educated on topics such as sexual violence and consent, gender stereotypes, SV myths and bystander attitudes and behaviors. The main goal is to promote discussion forums, increase the participants knowledge on these topics and deconstruct pre-conceived beliefs/ideas that promote societal tolerance and acceptance of SV The program follows a bystander approach to support young adults in the development of bystander attitudes and behaviors that will help them act in situations of risk of SV. To achieve this goal, the program sessions will also have a major focus on building bystander prevention skills through online practical exercises (e.g., training scenarios). Finally, the program also focuses on promoting empathy towards others, specifically in the context of sexual violence prevention. This focus aims to deconstruct victim blaming narratives and to build victim-support skills, to enhance the students' sense of responsibility and their proclivity to act and help others in need. Being empathic towards others is perceived as a crucial component in the bystander decision-making to intervene. This clinical trial will apply the MOON program with university students nationwide in the Portuguese context and compare the participants who will take part in the program (experimental group) with other students who will not (control group). Thus, the RCT will be conducted with the following goals: 1. To assess the treatment's efficacy, by evaluating the program's ability to significantly reduce gender stereotypes, sexism, and rape myths; and to significantly increase active bystander attitudes and behaviors and empathy towards other people. 2. To examine the extent to which any changes are maintained three, six and nine months after the program's completion. 3. To assess mechanisms of change, i.e., to test whether changes in cognitive outcomes, namely in rape myth endorsement, are associated with changes over time in behavioral outcomes, as bystander attitudes/behaviors. 4. To investigate the role of age and gender as moderators of change over time in SV perpetration, gender stereotypes, sexism, rape myths, bystander attitudes and behaviors and empathy.