Would You Intervene? An Immersive Filmed Virtual Reality Approach to Understanding Bystanders Witnessing a Sexual Assault

: (Alternative Format Thesis)

Abstract

The high rate of sexual assaults which happen in the presence of a bystander, combined with the low rate of bystander intervention, makes this a key area for sexual assault prevention efforts. But in order to encourage bystanders to intervene in such contexts, it is important to establish what affects their decision to intervene. This thesis had two aims. First, to investigate whether the need to believe in a just world (NBJW), and its related strategies, influence a bystander’s decision-making process when witnessing a sexual assault. And second, to explore how filmed virtual reality (VR; also referred to as 360-degree video) can be used as a methodological tool to help understand bystander decision-making. This thesis starts by reviewing literature on both aims in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 outlines two studies (one using text stimuli and the second using filmed VR), exploring how indirectly threatening the NBJW could influence bystander intervention intentions through potential mediators: belief in a just world (BJW) non-rational strategies like victim blaming, empathic variables, and Latané and Darley’s (1970) bystander decision-making process. In this chapter, we found consistent evidence for the effect of greater severity in increasing intervention intentions and for the predictive role of a bystander’s responsibility to intervene, but inconsistent findings related to the role of BJW strategies and empathic variables, and a lack of effects of severity on BJW strategies, empathic variables and the bystander stages. Chapter 3 focuses on the second aim by examining the effects of both stimuli type – filmed VR, animated VR and text vignettes – and stimuli display – flat screen and head-mounted display – on emotional and physiological arousal, presence and realism, within the context of depicting a sexual assault. Self-reported measures showed that filmed VR and HMD elicited greater emotional arousal, presence and realism, while physiological data highlighted the importance of display only, highlighting filmed content and HMD as emotionally impactful, realistic and immersive stimuli. Based on the findings of Chapters 2 and 3, Chapter 4 explores whether priming a bystander’s sense of responsibility through a fake advert could influence their intentions to intervene in response to a flat-screen, filmed VR sexual assault scene, although finding no significant effects of the advert. And lastly, Chapter 5 discusses the key findings of this thesis, namely the importance of a bystander’s sense of responsibility to intervene in predicting intervention intentions, and the utility of filmed VR stimuli on a HMD in research in this field. Chapter 5 also looks at contributions to existing literature, limitations, implications for bystander research and intervention programmes, as well as future areas of research.
 

Date of Award	25 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Danae Stanton Fraser (Supervisor), Mitch Callan (Supervisor) & Mark Levine (Supervisor)