Brainblogger
Originally Posted: Feb. 3, 2015
by Carla Clark, PhD
HOT: Virtual Reality used to Reduce Sexual Victimization of Teenage Girls
Who: Research team of Psychology Professors from Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
Where: In press in the journal Behavior Therapy from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.
Why: Females who firmly resist unwanted advances stand a greater chance of escaping a sexually coercive situation, from which there are numerous immediate and long-term deleterious effects.
After completion of “My Voice, My Choice” virtual reality resistance training, girls in the study that had had higher rates of previous victimization experienced lower rates of psychological distress and psychological victimization, e.g. being yelled at or called names, or having a boy try to frighten or spread rumors about her.
“This finding is particularly noteworthy because other violence protection programs have generally been ineffective or less effective for previously victimized young women,” said Simpson Rowe, lead author of the study and Associate Professor and Graduate Program Co-Director of Psychology at SMU. READ MORE