The Blue Wellness Project

Blue Wellness involved the development of a preventive intervention to reduce college women’s risk for being sexually revictimized. The project was funded by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) awarded to Dr. Parks. The first phase of the project involved developing the intervention through focus groups and an iterative process to develop the intervention components (videos, online interactive units). Once developed, the intervention included two 90-minute group sessions and two 30-minute online units. The intervention is designed to reduce heavy drinking and increase perception of sexual assault risk cues as well as improve women’s assertive drink refusal and responses to unwanted sexual advances in social situations. Preliminary findings were promising.

Past Master’s Projects

Ally Baio

Ally’s Master’s Project is titled “Ambivalent Sexism and the Influence of Perceived Sexist and Anti-Sexist Peer Norms on Intentions to Engage in Bystander Intervention Behavior.” The study aimed to assess the relationships among ambivalent sexism (i.e., hostile masculinity and benevolent sexism), peer norms, and intentions to engage in bystander intervention in response to hypothetical video scenarios embedded with sexual assault risk cues. We found that hostile masculinity, benevolent sexism, race, likelihood of a friend behaving like the man in the video, and perceived sexual assault risk influenced intentions to engage in bystander intervention behavior.