Identifying and naming acts of online sexual abuse

The vignettes in the current study were developed specifically for this research and presented six scenarios involving an adolescent girl: physical rape, consensual and voluntary sexting, sextortion, non-consensual image distribution, non-consensual image distribution for revenge, and online grooming. Three questions were asked about each vignette: a. Labeling After reading each vignette, participants were asked to indicate whether they recognized in it one of the following events: rape, sextortion, online grooming, image distribution, sexting, image sharing, and revenge-based image sharing. Respondents could also answer “I don't know.” b. Sexual violence After reading each vignette, participants were asked to answer Yes or No to the question: "Is the described event a case of sexual abuse?" c. Assigned responsibility Based on Sasson and Paul (2014), participants were asked to indicate the degree of blame for the situation assigned to the victim and the abuser (“what is the girl's/boy's level of responsibility for the event?”) on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Entirely responsible) to 5 (Entirely not responsible). In all the vignettes the boy was the abuser and the girl the victim. Responsibility ratings were dichotomized for the analyses, the actors being either entirely responsible or held some degree of responsibility, or none at all.