Different norms of sexual activity and consent seeking among college students: Social identity and statistical discrimination

Abstract

Preventing sexual assault on university campuses is rooted in promoting the adoption and practice of seeking consent. Using identity theory and a factorial vignette survey experiment, we test for the presence of implicit differences in appropriateness ratings based on context, gender, race and sexual orientation and, in aggregate, differences in social norms that govern college students’ sexual interactions. We provide a simple theoretical framework of statistical discrimination where the social norms for identical actions are predicted to differ because the appropriateness of actions is imperfectly observed and evaluators hold beliefs about underlying propensities of appropriate action that are rooted in identity. Our results show that context significantly alters perceptions of appropriate behavior and that heterosexual male actions are viewed as systematically less socially appropriate. We validate our findings with a post-study questionnaire which reveals that beliefs regarding appropriateness ratings are largely driven by the perceived rates of sexual assault among the represented population by the vignette narrator. The paper advances the study of norms rooted in identity and presents an identity-based theoretical framework that provides intuition for how such a differences may arise.