Informal Responses to Relationship and Sexual Violence: A System Dynamics Approach

Background and Purpose: Many students experience sexual violence during their time at school. While researchers have focused on the impacts of experiencing violence directly, little attention has been paid to the impacts on individuals who find out about violence in their communities or are actively supporting survivors of violence.

This project utilized system dynamics (SD) to better understand the system of peer responses to violence and its relationship to supporter and survivor distress. The following questions guided the research process: What is the structure of the system of peer responses to sexual and relationship violence, and how does it function? Where are potential leverage points for interventions in this peer response system to improve student mental health outcomes?

Methods: Twelve college students participated in semi-structured interviews about their experiences responding to incidents of sexual violence in their peer communities. The sample is predominantly white (75%) woman-identified (67%) and heterosexual (58%). Participants were recruited through posters, social media posts, and referrals from student organizations. Interviews took place during to 2016-2017 school year, and were recorded, transcribed, and de-identified as part of the initial study. Themes among interviews, individual participants’ descriptions, and data from existing literature were compiled to help create a stock and flow diagram. The diagram was then analyzed to identify critical structures contributing to student distress.

Results: Reinforcing loops in the diagram show connections between survivor and supporter distress levels such that increases in survivor distress lead to increases in supporter distress and vice versa. Balancing loops demonstrate several coping mechanisms used by supporters and survivors to reduce distress. Additional balancing loops suggest students attempt to improve support behaviors by increasing time and energy they dedicate to supporting survivors. However, efforts ultimately lead to burnout and decreased quality of support.

Conclusions and Implications: Coping mechanisms feed into the reinforcing loops connecting survivor and supporter distress levels, meaning these coping mechanisms are not sustainable methods for reducing distress. Student focus on increasing time spent supporting to better help survivors while ultimately providing lower quality support suggests the presence of a capability trap structure--wherein harder work produces poorer results--which must be addressed to improve system performance.

Findings suggest a need for creative strategies to address students’ reliance on unsustainable coping mechanisms. Example strategies include increasing access to counseling services for supporters of survivors, interventions to increase students’ awareness of support system dynamics, and interventions to increase knowledge of available formal resources and understanding of how to make referrals among students. These actions would promote survivors’ and supporters’ access to formal resources and reduce pressure placed on students to provide extensive support to peers. Future research should utilize simulation modeling to identify leverage points where interventions would have the greatest impact on informal support systems.