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Engaging men and boys as partners or “allies” in eliminating gender-based violence (GBV) is an increasingly institutionalized element of global efforts to end violence against women. Research in this field is relatively young, however, and little is known about the actual uptake of violence-preventative behaviors by engaged men. Further, existing evidence regarding rates and predictors of anti-violence “bystander” behavior has primarily emerged from U.S. college campuses; less is known about rates of violence-preventative behaviors and the factors that support them beyond college campuses and globally. The primary aims of this exploratory, international study were therefore to 1) describe rates of the use of both proactive and reactive violence prevention behaviors among men involved in GBV prevention across global regions, and 2) examine the relative contribution of attitudinal and social network predictors of bystander behavior and willingness among male allies.
Methods:
A trilingual (English, Spanish and French) online survey was administered for approximately six months, and disseminated via topic-relevant listserves and individual invitations to over 450 organizations globally. The domains assessed included violence prevention behaviors, willingness to engage in and self-efficacy to engage in violence prevention, motivations for anti-violence involvement, and the degree of support for gender equity in men’s social networks, including their families, friends and co-workers. The sample of 392 male-identified participants (aged 20-65) in this analysis came from 53 countries; of these, 56% were from North America, 18% from Latin America, 11% from Europe, 9% from Africa, and 6% from Asia. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior as an analytic guide, we ran a series of multiple regression analyses. We first examined bystander willingness as the dependent variable and motivations for violence prevention, self-efficacy for violence prevention, and social network support as predictors. We subsequently examined bystander behavior as the dependent variable using hierarchical regression, with the same set of predictors added on the first step and bystander willingness as an additional predictor on the second step.
Results:
Regression results demonstrated that violence prevention motivation and bystander efficacy predicted bystander willingness. Bystander efficacy and social network support predicted bystander behavior, and remained significant predictors when bystander willingness was added to the regression on the second step. Bystander willingness significantly increased the variance explained by the other predictors.
Discussion:
These results provide partial support for the Theory of Planned Behavior as a framework for understanding men’s bystander intentions and behavior. Focusing intervention on increasing bystander efficacy is a strategy that seems to be supported by this data. The results also support social norms theory, in that the presence of other men in their social networks (family, friends and at work) who support violence prevention predicts men’s own violence prevention behavior. These results expand our understanding of bystander behavior, moving beyond college campuses in the U.S. to a study including men involved in gender-based violence prevention from around the world.