The connection between sexual aggression and different aspects of empathy in male college students
Supervisor: Dr. David Vachon
My name is Juliette and I worked with Dr. Vachon over the past year. My project looked at the connection between sexual aggression and different aspects of empathy in male college students. Perpetrators of sexual assault and other violent crimes are often assumed to have a lack of empathy; however, in reality, the research backing up this relationship has mixed results. The purpose of this study was to clarify the role of three different facets of empathy as risk factors in sexual aggression, using a new and expanded scale to measure empathy. Our results suggested that current treatment and prevention efforts for sexual aggression could benefit from redirecting focus to the affective (emotional), rather than the cognitive aspects of empathy.