"Turning off the polite switch"

Jeff brought my attention to this article today, which discusses a recent study about sexual victimization in teens. The study is a randomized controlled trial in which the control group went through virtual reality training in which they practiced firmly saying "no" to sexual advances from male avatars while the control group received no training. In the three months following the training, the control group reported sexual victimization at a rate of 22% (about average according to the 2006 Department of Justice study), while only 10% in the treatment reported victimization in the same period.

This study is interesting to me because it trains girls in being assertive and unapologetic, setting boundaries and being outspoken when those boundaries are being crossed, and putting aside "polite" behavior when the situation does not call for it. This is something that I talk about a lot, and the term that I have come to use for it is "turning off the polite switch." My theory is that we spend most of our youth being trained in proper socialization, so when it comes time to turn those behaviors off, most people have a hard time doing so.

In particular, I think people have trouble being assertive and impolite with people who they see as generally nonthreatening--for example, people they have known before this incident, or people they consider peers or friends. For the majority of cases of sexual assault or victimization, the perpetrator and victim do know each other, so it is not surprising to me that the victim would have trouble turning off the social behaviors that they have been trained their entire lives to use with people they know and will continue to interact with. Most likely, if it were a stranger on the street threatening them, it would be easier to tell them off rudely; it's easier to use rude behaviors with someone with whom you do not have a prior or future relationship.

The training used in this study used situations of escalating levels of threat to get girls accustomed to turning off the polite switch--even when it feels rude and wrong--to send a clear message to the perpetrator that he is violating her boundaries. I think the exercise of being assertive and rude and learning when the situation calls for it is extremely valuable for the prevention of sexual assault, and I hope that this pilot study will be replicated on a larger scale. I'm curious to see whether the results will hold up.