Trent Maurer published in Family Science Review

August 10, 2023

Congratulations Trent Maurer for his solo authored recent publication!

Maurer, T.W. (2023).  Hindsight bias and perceptions of sexual assault. Family Science Review, 27(2). http://doi.org/10.26536/UNUJ1629

ABSTRACT. This investigation explored hindsight bias in college students’ perceptions of sexual assault. Participants read a vignette about a man and woman who met at a party with the conditions varied across the vignettes: the alcohol use of the characters, the outcome of the vignette, and in the rape outcome, the victim’s actions after the assault. Hindsight bias was assessed using both the posttest-only method and the pretest/posttest method and for both the outcome of the vignette and post-outcome events. Results revealed significant evidence for the existence of hindsight bias with the pretest/posttest method. Additionally, results revealed some evidence for hindsight bias contamination in perceptions of vignette characters, but in ways contrary to those predicted by the Defensive Attribution Hypothesis (Shaver, 1970).

Keywords: hindsight bias, sexual assault, vignette