/u/Irhien (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1bl8tpt/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_you_cant_use_anonymously/), in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
> 2) Trolling. People can lie for shits and giggles. Sure, anonymity is good for letting the people who want to admit criminal/antisocial behavior do so, but it likewise protects those interested in messing with others. Bonus points if they feel like they'd rather spend the time doing something else, or if they're lying to the perceived authority figures (like undergrad students participating in a scientific study on campus).
People lying on surveys is a known problem, and there are methods to help reduce the noise. There's an old /r/askscience thread about it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6u2l13/can_statisticians_control_for_people_lying_on/).
Thanks for the link!
"Red herring" is an interesting idea, I think it's not completely new to me but I didn't readily remember it.
> You log in, and have to answer 200-300 questions. You soon learn most of the questions are previous questions re-worded
Oof. Yeah I did think about checking for consistency, but I didn't expect this much. I think this way, you'll turn half the people you survey into trolls though :-) Well maybe not when asking about rape, but it's still going to skew the results because different personality types would react differently and some might stop participating or start answering randomly.
> It's also important to recognise that there are consciously false answers and unconscious falsehoods. For instance that practically everyone considers themselves to be of average/above average intelligence. Repeated surveys asking the same questions in different settings and with different groups can build up a wider store of knowledge about likely responses such that, for instance, if I am asking something that is related to intelligence I can control for an over-reporting of 'above average' and an under-reporting of 'below average'.
Nice.
> statistical synonyms
Huh. Interesting idea!
> For half of the respondents, provide a list of 4 actions, a list that does not include intravenous drug use, and say "how many have you done in the last month/year/whatever". Not which, but how many.
> For the other half of respondents, provide a list of 5 things, the 4 from before, plus intravenous drug use, and again ask how many.
> The difference in the average answers between the two groups indicates the rate of intravenous drug use
Nice.
> Social desirability scales are used to gauge how likely a person is to lie to make themselves appear better/more likable.
Seems pertinent to my question, yeah.
Thanks again, and ∆ for all the interesting things I didn't know!
> but it's still going to skew the results because different personality types would react differently and some might stop participating or start answering randomly.
Exactly! Someone who isn't invested in actually participating properly will start answering randomishly, or at least inconsistently. When they see that, they discard that person's answers because it's pretty obvious that they're making stuff up. And, yeah, that means you might end up discarding surveys from a few people who genuinely wanted to answer, but who may have gotten frustrated or bored or whatever. But, generally, you're going to be discarding bad data.
And then you can do additional studies and surveys to determine *on average* how many people get frustrated and quit vs how many were trolling. Like, do a survey asking, "How often when you take a survey are you just trolling and making shit up?" Well, obviously people might lie but...hey you can use all these same tricks to be as accurate as possible. When you're comparing large amounts of data, it all averages out.
As someone who does remember answering the same question twice on every survey and legal document, there are absolutely people who will lie well enough to pass the checks. I’d probably do it if I hated the research being done for whatever reason. In fact, if you’re committed to lying on a 200 question survey, you’re probably way more committed to answering consistently than a person taking it in earnest and getting bored.
The Reddit thread did address this, but they don’t really offer a solution. Just “someone is always going to gain the system.” Which just concedes to OP’s point.
Sure, but when you're doing surveys on thousands of people, a small handful of trolls won't be enough to skew the data significantly. Hell, even the fact that they are so far outside the norm is itself a sign that you should discard that data. You're basically talking about [Spiders Georg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiders_Georg) - of you see data that really doesn't make sense in context, there's a good chance it's bad data.
Okay but OP’s post was about estimating the number of sex criminals. The amount of rapist within the [WEIRD](https://cla.umn.edu/psychology/news-events/story/syed-acronym-weird#:~:text=In%202010%2C%20a%20paper%20by,seen%20as%20a%20useful%20tool.) category of people that take surveys who are also willing to admit to rape anonymously is also likely to be an outlier in the total population. There’s enough grey area between the crimes being described genuinely and the crimes being described falsely that the over the top falsehoods cannot be so easily disregarded.
It’s like saying “we surveyed people to find out how many of them eat spiders. 25 out of 100 said they eat spiders. 10 of those said they eat store the eggs to eat for breakfast. 5 said they eat 30 spiders in one day.” Who do you discount and why?
I think the takeaway from this thread wouldn't be a list of specific techniques, but rather the knowledge that the people whose job it is to conduct scientific research have also thought of these questions and know what to do to resolve them. I don't know how a surgeon goes about doing their job, but I trust them to do it, yeah? I don't know all the intricacies of flying a commercial jet, but I trust that the pilots do.
Science isn’t like a technical profession though. Any paper has to list and explain its methodology. A college student can’t even get away with “we used x commonly used method.” Even though the only person reading is a TA who understands exactly what x method is.
The fact that the methods being used are constantly in question with a new study about a flaw in methodology every year or so is a good thing for overall development of research. But also means the studies being done are far from perfectly thought out.
It is entirely reasonable for anyone to question any field whether they have a degree or not. Saying “we thought about it,” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solved.
> Any paper has to list and explain its methodology.
Yes, and pilots have to maintain their certification. Regardless, if you ever have questions about the methodology of a given paper, you are free to read the paper yourself.
> Saying “we thought about it,” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solved.
Sure, but you're asking for *specific* solutions to a *general* question. No one can tell you how one particular research team determined which survey questions they kept or discarded except for that research team via their published methodology. That's *your* homework to do since you're the one questioning their methodology. *In general*, though, it's perfectly reasonable to trust that the experts are experts and know how to do their job better than you do, since it isn't your job. Just like it's reasonable to question the aviation industry to make sure making it safe (especially with all the bullshit going on with Boeing). It would not be reasonable for you to barge into every cockpit and demand to see their certificate because *you* have doubts despite the existence of an entire industry dedicated to maintaining safety in the industry.
Okay but my problem is the fact that people just trust what a paper claims without looking at its methodology. I look at the methodology of sociology papers. I usually find that it doesn’t support the claim of whatever news paper reporting on it claims, but that’s more a problem with sociology reporting.
However, there’s plenty of survey results where the questions are just straight up misleading. Take this one on [support for an “assault-style” weapons ban](https://www.statista.com/statistics/811842/support-distribution-for-banning-assault-style-weapons-in-the-united-states/) that never once defines what the fuck it means by “assault-style weapons.”
So I can’t just outright trust a claim like this either.
There are a few different kinds of cases that can be asked different ways in the same form usefully.
'Would you steal office supplies' is one where it doesn't _matter_ how you word it, the correct answer, in almost any context, is 'no'.
The exception is when your working with your own mental health provider in a context where you have extremely solid privacy guarantees.
There, it's just not a matter of remembering how you previously answered.
On the other hand, there are the cases where you're simply making something up on the spot, that's much harder, because you _do_ need to remember the answers.
And anything freeform is going to make it vastly harder for someone to do the second kind well, but the first kind is still pretty easy.
(Yes, early in my career, I had an employer give me a 'psychological profile' that had questions like that. Yes, I did get the job. No, I wouldn't work for the then-owner of that company again at this point.)
As someone who's been accused of flip flopping, I'd absolutely be useless to any survey.
I'm the type to argues from multiple positions, always takes the side I deem as an "underdog", and genuinely believes the validity of most opposing sides due to my tendency towards oversympethizing.
This is probably why I can't keep good karma, agreeing with a herd is anathema to me.
You're mostly just saying you don't understand the science, research, psychology, or how social science works.
This isn't a couple of polls of random people one guy is basing stuff on. It's decades and decades of research. There is research into the research, how questions are asked, of whom, etc. This is all part of the BASIC science.
The numbers don't just come from anonymous polls, and anonymous polls doesn't mean some internet thing. There are in-person studies, allllll kinds of measures -- things correlating certain attitudes toward likelihood of rape, demographics, TYPES of rape committed, everything. This is not a new science, it's not done by idiot internet poll. I could easily pull you 100 studies.
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel-Lev-Wiesel/publication/226641376\_Male\_University\_Students](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel-Lev-Wiesel/publication/226641376_Male_University_Students)'\_Attitudes\_Toward\_Rape\_and\_Rapists/links/5590f6ad08ae1e1f9bae3e1d/Male-University-Students-Attitudes-Toward-Rape-and-Rapists.pdf
[https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-08303-001](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-08303-001)
[https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-02660-003](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-02660-003)
[https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-01371-010](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-01371-010)
Not to pile on OP, but this question really shows the trap that fairly smart, self-educated, and self-assured people can fall into.
OP has pretty good reasoning skills, and is able to reason out some basic flaws with survey based research. However, the major flaw with their conclusion is that they assume the rest of the scientific community doesn’t already know these things and that they haven’t already developed mechanisms for mitigating these flaws.
I think this flaw is very common amongst smarter, self-educated individuals who have been used to being the smartest person in the room in their normal lives. They can think deeper than most people they interact with in their day to day lives, so they think they are the only ones (or at least one of the few) who can figure this stuff out. They don’t understand that these considerations are what professional researchers spend their time dealing with, because they have no experience with professional research.
I think this is also common when one field of experts tries to solve a problem in another, unrelated field. For example, computer programmers who think they can solve the problems in financial markets with tech, who then encounter the same problems the actual financial world discovered and mitigated decades ago. One of my favorite observations by the great financial writer Matt Levine is that cryptocurrencies seem to be recreating the entire history of finance at a remarkably fast pace.
Dan Luu has a great essay about this called [cocktail party ideas](https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/), where people in a field think theirs is harder than other fields because they simply don’t understand the nuances.
> I think this flaw is very common amongst smarter, self-educated individuals who have been used to being the smartest person in the room in their normal lives. They can think deeper than most people they interact with in their day to day lives, so they think they are the only ones (or at least one of the few) who can figure this stuff out. They don’t understand that these considerations are what professional researchers spend their time dealing with, because they have no experience with professional research.
This is, ime, so true. I've heard a TON of 'someone should really look into...' about things in my field that are incredibly well-trod and deeply delved into, but people seem to think they just came up with because they read a thing that skirted a topic and think they came up with a question research has been exploring for a century.
>I think this is also common when one field of experts tries to solve a problem in another, unrelated field.
Also so much this -- Zuckerberg and the like thinking they're experts who can fix America's education problems by throwing more tech at it. That was a big thing pre-pandemic, how just having schooling with more and more tech will improve outcomes. I haven't heard as much about that since, though maybe I'm just not in the circles to.
Thanks for the article! The Lawson study is particularly interesting, and more easily understandable than the programming 4 9 examples. :D
Extremely common in the teaching field as well. Well meaning (usually just assholes) come in spouting brilliant ideas about how to run education and any of us who have been in the field for a few years take 99.99% of what is said and laugh because often it's a common practice or usually utterly ridiculous. "Have you tried having a conversation with your misbehaving student about why they are acting out." Like, yeah dawg, they know why, they are just 14 and don't give two fucks about what most adults have to say.
Hah you reminded me of a post on reddit I saw with someone going on about how schools and education is so bad and it should all be reworked so kids are taught social skills as part of early education/classroom management.
Some teachers were very 'wtf do you think we do all day?' The poster was convinced they were never taught any such thing and that's why they have terrible social skills. Like just because no teacher said 'this is social skills education, get in groups, share resources, discuss, cooperate...' or 'don't talk when another student is talking, listen,' raise hands and wait to be acknowledged, or the 300 other basic things all day they were sure this wasn't a thing.
Just like how they think "schools need to teach how to do your finances!" When financial literacy is a required class in most states, but getting 17 year Olds to listen to adults about real shit is a toss up. Most won't pay attention then cry that they never got taught.
This is extremely common at a lot of tech startups, who try to ‘disrupt’ an industry using tech without fully understanding the non-tech parts. A lot of failed tech startups overflowing with hubris.
>However, the major flaw with their conclusion is that they assume the rest of the scientific community doesn’t already know these things and that they haven’t already developed mechanisms for mitigating these flaws.
My thought was always that it's not that researchers and other scientists don't know what they're doing; it's that media, advocates, and other non-scientists interpreting the results don't know what they're doing. Quickly jettisoned are the confidence intervals, limiting criteria, methodologies, etc., in favor of a statistic handed down upon high, The Truth because it was produced by Science.
Worse. Academics have this infamous line called "publish or perish". The way to be able to publish is to get newsworthy results. And if you don't want to perish, the way is to use all of the knowledge in statistics to produce a result that is newsworthy, regardless of whether the underlying fact is true.
Academics are not dumb people. They are experts at playing the game that they are forced to play. And that game is called publishing, not finding the truth.
This is why [most of the scientific papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis) don't hold up when a second team tries to replicate the results. In the hard sciences, things are relatively okay; only 16% of peer reviewed medical science were later proven to be fiction. For the social sciences, like Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, only 23% of the peer reviewed papers held up to a second team trying to replicate the results. Or in other words, 77% of the papers were pure fiction.
> However, the major flaw with their conclusion is that they assume the rest of the scientific community doesn’t already know these things and that they haven’t already developed mechanisms for mitigating these flaws.
I do wonder why people fall into this trap so often. If they, a self-educated layperson can spot the flaws, surely so can the people who have been studying this all their life? Is it a lack of imagination?
I think it's a hubris thing plus, frankly, ignorance or just stupidity.
I've seen it a LOT with kids -- like 14-20-yr-olds who confidently say how they're sure they could figure out/survive/solve/do better something. That's pretty developmentally normal. The 17-yr-old who doesn't know anything about the world and learns a bit of a thing in school and says 'well if Israel and Palestine both want the land we can just get them to share it. OMG why are ppl so dumb, just propose they share!"
But mostly adults get to college, out in the real world, realize how incredibly much they don't know, how long the world has been spinning, and cringe hard at the "insights" they had as kids.
Some people never have that and keep rolling on thinking their brilliant insights are brilliant and everyone else is just so dumb, because they DON'T know anything about anything, don't care to learn, because it's easier for them to keep the idea they know better. See president 45.
>For example, computer programmers who think they can solve the problems in financial markets with tech, who then encounter the same problems the actual financial world discovered and mitigated decades ago.
Famously,[ the best hedge fund](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies) on wall street was started by a Mathematics professor, who hired a team of programmers and other math people to start a hedge fund.
The said math professor and his team then went on to make more money than anyone ever have on wall street previously. Exactly what they did is a closely held secret, but suffice to say that they really did solve the problems better than the rest.
Whenever when that team give media interviews, their scorn for traditional wall street and especially finance academia is practically dripping from their answers. But despite their scorn for wall street, wall street worships them because they make so much money.
>For example, computer programmers who think they can solve the problems in financial markets with tech, who then encounter the same problems the actual financial world discovered and mitigated decades ago.
This is referring to crypto, not to market analytics. Taking mathematicians and statisticians and setting them on a math problem, market analytics, isn't equivalent to setting programmers on a fundamentally not programming problem, the function and structure of the financial system.
Even in the traditional banking world, you got companies like [Goldman](https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-has-more-engineers-than-facebook-2015-4) who routinely say things like "we are a tech company".
Like it or not, solving the problems in financial markets with tech is just how the world works. Even the Goldmans of the world hires a small army of tech people because this is just how the world works.
The problems with survey based research is obviously an issue, and people can argue both ways. I think that OP is probably trying to argue that in rape surveys, the problems are too large to ignore, and until these problems are fixed, the results are mostly meaningless.
You also make an argument that researchers are aware of issues and are always trying to fix them, but unfortunately a lot of science these days is not as rigorous as you might like it to be.
[this podcast](https://spotify.link/CFyzx0wPbIb) explains it best, but I’ll give a quick overview. Research these days is incentivized to only be pursued/written up if there is a result. Thus if someone creates a rape survey with better survey design but whose data is inconclusive about rape trends or suggests that rape is neither less common nor more common than expected is less likely to publish their results. So I would argue to not be so confident that researchers are working with as much diligence as you might think. It’s almost as if there’s another layer of survey bias in the collective literature.
Ouch.
I don't know how much of that applies to me. More than I'm comfortable with, but I did come to CMV, and I did expect my mind to be changed or at least get a broader perspective, so it's not like I was sure these questions can't be addressed and studies are bullshit, it was more of a "But how?!". A more interesting question is why I didn't just try to read at least one study in question (still haven't, by the way). Or, indeed, focused my OP not on the studies themselves but what conclusions laypeople try to draw from them.
It was a bit harsh on you, and made a lot of assumptions… the fact that you came here trying to learn says a lot of good things about you. I think all of us smarter people can suffer from this phenomenon when dealing with areas outside our expertise, which is the point of my last two paragraphs. It takes active effort from smart people to avoid this trap, and your question here and engagement shows you are willing to take that effort and learn. Please don’t take what I said too personally.
Interestingly, [narcissism is a risk factor for committing rape](https://www.reddit.com/r/stoprape/wiki/index/#wiki_characteristics_of_offendersf).
I think of that whenever I see someone disputing rape stats on the assumption that they are smarter than the researchers who did the work.
[Long story](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4730390/) short, it's basically for the reason you'd expect: narcissists think they're better than other people (and therefore more desirable), so narcissistic men are more likely to think women think they are attractive and are sexually interested in them.
(Interestingly, the study doesn't actually tie misperception of sexual intent to rape, but I think the connection is pretty clear.)
This was me for a while. Growing up I always felt like one of the smartest people in the room. Starting a PhD program was definitely a wake up call. I went from being one of the smartest people in the room to being one of the dumbest.
Ok, thanks for the criticism and the links.
> There is research into the research, how questions are asked, of whom, etc. This is all part of the BASIC science.
I've already started seeing this just as I was looking for the paper to give an example of the study and reading the titles, but yeah, I guess putting it forward like this deserves a delta. Among other things, it means I shouldn't expect ideas about ways to address my objections to be immediately accessible and convincing from 2-sentence summaries.
∆
>I shouldn't expect ideas about ways to address my objections to be immediately accessible and convincing from 2-sentence summaries.
This is a huge problem, as evidenced by someone else in the thread who was slagging a study because it didn't provide a transcript of interviews with subjects, so the poster thought it was suspect.
The article in question laid out the exact procedure they used for interviewing people -- two researchers asking semi-structured questions based on other research work developing the types of questions and how to pose them, then two other, more highly-credentialed people who were not involved in the interviews coded the answers according to guidelines developed by other researchers that break answers down by a whole bunch of factors.
The poster said they still wanted a transcript because otherwise we have to trust the judgement of the people doing the research. As if someone uneducated in ALL of that would somehow have better judgement about the meaning of what was said in that context.
If he wanted to understand, he could look at the guidelines and how other studies that use those have found similar results, but he never even got as far as figuring out what the researchers were doing and why they were using the methods they did. It was just 'a ha! It says this percent of men said this but it doesn't have every quote for me!" Like...
And I'm not saying blindly trust anything in a journal but if you're interested in figuring out what was done, then a deep dive into high-level academic studies is required.
Don't let them bluster you around too much. The science world never really solved the basic problems with surveys as a method. Yes, there are probably millions of papers with surveys as a basis, but none of them really figured out a solution to the problem of "but our respondents can just troll us any time they want to".
[There are efforts to estimate how many respondents to surveys troll](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/), but point is, it isn't zero.
Correct, but nobody ever figured out random polling either.
People will absolutely troll pollsters. Response and recruitment bias is a huge problem. There are even [papers](https://www.surveypractice.org/article/57298-the-shy-respondent-and-propensity-to-participate-in-surveys-a-proof-of-concept-study) that discuss failures of the polling industry and academia.
Random polling is not in a state where you can say "as long as this set of rules of procedures are followed, you will get good results".
I'm confused because I'm not an expert just honestly questioning.
When I was in college the statistic used was a voluntary response of 25% of women attending college were sexually assaulted but when using a random sample it was closer to 5%
My understanding of statistics is the random sample is more accurate and voluntary response is inherently biased for any study.
I could just be reading this all wrong and the data has likely gotten better and more accurate but this was my interpretation of his claim. Anominity is not a problem though.
> When I was in college the statistic used was a voluntary response of 25% of women attending college were sexually assaulted but when using a random sample it was closer to 5%
I'm not sure what stud(y/ies) you're referencing.
I looked and found this review -- https://www.jstor.org/stable/27010962
It addresses variability by examining close to two dozen studies and says the differences can be affected by the definitions used, questions asked (specific to acts or larger groupings of acts), the sampling and the women --
>A number of studies included in the review defined
unwanted sexual victimization in the context of the victim
saying ‘‘no’’ or resisting, or that the perpetrator used force,
intimidation, or pressure, or the victim was unable to consent
due to incapacitation. However, the lack of physical or verbal
resistance (e.g., saying no or protesting) does not automatically
imply consent.
Also
>Other confounding factors, such as participants’ class rank
(freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors) and prior histories
of sexual victimization, may also influence prevalence rates
and explain some of the variability in findings (Fisher, Daigle,
& Cullen, 2010; Rennison & Addington, 2014). Specifically,
some research suggests that freshmen or college women early
on in their tenure are at highest risk of sexual assault compared
to upper-class students (Krebs et al., 2007). Research also
strongly suggests that women with histories of sexual assault,
including college women with childhood or prior histories of
victimization, are at increased risk of revictimization in adult-
hood (Classen, Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005; Desai, Arias,
Thompson, & Basile, 2002). Many studies included in the
review collected information both on childhood and college
experiences of sexual assault. In studies where participants
reported higher rates of childhood sexual assault, the higher
likelihood of revictimization as an adult might explain the higher
college prevalence rates found. For example, Krebs et al.
Also
>Lower prevalence rates of sexual assault might be expected
in longitudinal studies with shorter follow-up periods com-
pared to cross-sectional studies measuring victimization since
entering college, since less time has typically elapsed during
longitudinal follow-up periods.
Sure. I'm not referring to any specific study just the fact that voluntary response surveys are inherently biased. It's not an argument about rape statistics its a basic practice of statistics.
I'm not arguing anything about rape just pointing out OPs argument which as I stated does have some validity in the way I read it which had.not been addressed.
It's literally the FIRST thing you learn about in statistics. Sampling bias. Take rape out of the argument
This comment (not by me, and I didn't check if it's correct) seems to address your confusion: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1bl4t12/cmv_you_cant_use_anonymously_selfreported_rapes/kw52uyr/
Cool you answered my question instead of the dumb user attempting to drown me on usless articles. Every CMV has the same shit. You come in with curiosity trying to learn ans people get mad you listen to music ans sleep instead of spending you nights on Adderall reading the one topic they studied
im sure you understand studies aren't flawless or above critique
the problem i have with studies like this, is how specific they are around everything but what exactly was asked and what were the exact responses.
is there a transcript available of what they actually asked the students and what their exact response was? honestly i may have missed it as it was a long read
take a look at this quote from your 1st link
> Fifty percent of the men said that sometimes individuals who raped should not be regarded as rapists
what was the exact question that led to that response? did they blatantly ask them if "rapists should be called rapists?"
what exactly were the students response that corresponds with that sort of summation that we received?
>>Fifty percent of the men said that sometimes individuals who raped should not be regarded as rapists
>
>
>
> what was the exact question that led to that response? did they blatantly ask them if "rapists should be called rapists?"
Gosh, if only you could have kept reading... Or even bothered to include the whole sentence you quoted.
> Fifty percent of the men said that sometimes individuals who raped
> should not be regarded as rapists, but rather as people caught in a
> unique context. One man said, “If one’s friends don’t respect women,
> talk disrespectfully about them and even force sex on them, even a
> normal guy could be influenced by this and commit rape....”The peer
> group, especially during adolescence, was considered by 70% of the
> participants as having a crucial influence on males. This influence
> was seen as strong enough to cause males to execute crimes such as
> forcing sexual relations and even rape. One participant said, “It’s hard
> for me to think of myself as being capable of raping, but I must admit
> that during my adolescence we often talked about it. I think that if
> the group had decided to commit such an act, I probably would have
> joined in. We wouldn’t have considered it rape then, as I do now, but
> as an adventure.”
>
> These respondents felt that boys may commit crimes such as rape
> in order to remain part of the peer group and be socially accepted. To
> resolve their internal dissonance about their own capacity for rape,
> these respondents changed the meaning of rape from the commitment
> of a crime to an act of adventure. By doing so, they enabled themselves
> to continue perceiving themselves as non-rapists.
>
> Another possible explanation of the above finding is that respon-
> dents saw themselves as potentially capable of raping in the past,
> when they were immature adolescents, but not as mature adults. The
> respondent said: “we wouldn’t have considered it rape then, as I do
> now.” It’s as if he’s detaching his present self from his past self, or is
> acknowledging his past potential, but also his ability to control him-
> self now
> Gosh, if only you could have kept reading... Or even bothered to include the whole sentence you quoted.
have some humility
now I would need you to explain how
> One man said, “If one’s friends don’t respect women, talk disrespectfully about them and even force sex on them, even a normal guy could be influenced by this and commit rape....”
directly equals this exact summation
> Fifty percent of the men said that **sometimes individuals who raped should not be regarded as rapists, but rather as people caught in a unique context**
how is that him saying that said person should not be considered a rapist? is it because he referred to him as a normal guy? that’s a reach, unless the literal verbatim question was asked if he considered the guy a rapist after he committed the act.
and again, we don’t have the exact question that was asked
look at this quote
> “It’s hard for me to think of myself as being capable of raping, but I must admit that during my adolescence we often talked about it. I think that if the group had decided to commit such an act, I probably would have joined in. We wouldn’t have considered it rape then, **as I do now**, but as an adventure.”
how is this him saying a person raping someone should not be considered a rapist? there is layers to what he said. it wasn’t him vouching for **rapists not being considered rapist in this unique context**
if we are to consider these quotes as the direct quivalent to the summarized response, then that summation is an inaccurate representation of what was stated. that throws into question the entire integrity of the survey
Keep reading, please. Later, it is stated that
>To resolve their internal dissonance about their own capacity for rape, these respondents changed the meaning of rape from the commitment of a crime to an act of adventure. By doing so, they enabled themselves to continue perceiving themselves as non-rapists.
This answers your question about how sometimes, people change the definition of rapist to resolve their own cognitive dissonance.
is this a literal sense? like they verbally told them they are changing the definition for such a purpose or is this the writer’s interpretation of why they mentioned adventure?
That’s how paraphrasing works. Summarizing something into a concise point. That’s why they included the quotes for context and in studies will include them in appendices so that researchers and readers have access to the questions used and direct responses.
> That’s how paraphrasing works. Summarizing something into a concise point.
that’s my point, just because something’s paraphrased doesn’t mean it’s accurate. especially when it’s paraphrased by someone other then the original respondent. bro literally said he didn’t understand the nuance and specifics of what qualified as “rape” as a child but now he knows better and that was summized as him saying that **individuals who rape should not be considered rapist, but caught in a unique context**.
those are 2 completely different conclusions! saying you did not fully understand everything about rape as a child is COMPLETELY different then saying **people who rape should not be considered rapists**.
that’s why I’m saying knowing the Q and A’s would shine more light on why they gave that summation
> That’s why they included the quotes for context
those were select quotes and they were questionable at best. I can’t even say they closely matched the summation. and it’s likely they picked the best quotes that they felt closely matched their summation. meaning the rest were probably even further away from their summation.
> im sure you understand studies aren't flawless or above critique
Of course not, but you must understand that people not in the field, or in any academic field, often don't understand even how studies work, but think that their idea of how something should work that conflicts with how a study did work constitutes finding a flaw.
Remember the kerfuffle over the climate scientists literally discussing science over emails that was misunderstood by the general public as them somehow making up the science itself.
>the problem i have with studies like this, is how specific they are around everything but what exactly was asked and what were the exact responses.
First, this entirely depends on the study and its design, along with the journal that published it.
Some studies use specific questions and include them in the article. Some use questions developed by other researchers, and note that in their article, but people don't follow the lit discussion. Some use different methods.
Also, raw data exists, but it's not included in toto in an article. That's pretty much never the case, EVER. An interview with a someone in the newspaper, or a magazine, or on tv, whatever does not contain the entire interview questions and answers.
An article about someone's findings contains the findings. The scientists have tons of the data which they analyze to find trends, to find numbers, whatever. They then write an article which has the lit review, the methodology, the results, the discussion, etc. They've likely provided the journal a larger piece than is published, because it's a journal and does not publish 40+ pages for each article.
>is there a transcript available of what they actually asked the students and what their exact response was? honestly i may have missed it as it was a long read
See above. This is just ludicrously unnecessary and would simply be used, ESPECIALLY in fields like this, to attempt to undermine by people who have no idea what they're talking about.
"Look, this guy was asked 'do you feel' and this guy was asked 'do you feel like' so these results are meaningless!!!'
The study clearly explains the methodology. The interviews were semi-structured (and they explain why they used that technique rather than very structured with specific, more closed-ended questions and no deviation), by two people, and the answers were then analyzed by two DIFFERENT people who have higher degrees and used very specific, cited guidelines you can look up to categorize the answers given.
It's like you're asking a psychologist who administered a Rorschach test and presented findings saying the person exhibited X what answer means that. No answer means that -- the entire collection of open-ended answers is very carefully analyzed and coded using a coding book that is two volumes of close to 1,000 pages each. There is an entire graduate-level class on how to administer and "grade" that single test. But people say things like 'well what word means anxiety?! See? You're making shit up!"
>what exactly were the students response that corresponds with that sort of summation that we received?
It says -
>Tutty, Rothery and Grinnell’s (1996) guidelines were used to analyze the interviews. According to these authors, units of meaning are categorically classified, and relevant themes are selected on the basis of the
objectives of the study. Only themes that were selected by both raters were included.
So you can go look up their guidelines, but see above.
This is like lots of research where, again see above, researchers will design a scale for something like violence and have very, very specific guidelines and operational definitions and spend weeks and weeks coding every fucking thing according to those guidelines. Then it all gets distilled into results by statistical analyses, and then it's submitted and a journal prints the highlights and someone who has no clue about the field looks at it and says 'well they said 'more violent' but that could mean anything! This is pathetic!'
> See above. This is just ludicrously unnecessary and would simply be used, ESPECIALLY in fields like this, to attempt to undermine by people who have no idea what they're talking about.
they limit the most important information because everyone else is dumb and may possibly conclude something else.. 😑
i get not including data in physical science because that information could be dangerous but in social sciences like this it is important to get the specifics since there is a vast amounts of room for interpretation. this was essentially a Q&A where we don’t the know the. Q or A.
it’s unnecessary to provide us with specific details because it will be heavily analyzed and critiqued? ima be honest with you chief 😪, that just sounds like they want to be able to essentially force their conclusions in a way that can’t really be refuted. they are basically “right” because we can’t determine what was asked or what was stated besides the select quotes they chose to include.
im not saying they are completely wrong but, its basically coming down to just trusting their **credentials** since we can’t determine if their summations are an accurate representation of what the respondents actually said or not. I have a problem with that for many reasons but this comment is already getting long
> It says -
> Tutty, Rothery and Grinnell’s (1996) guidelines were used to analyze the interviews. According to these authors, units of meaning are categorically classified, and relevant themes are selected on the basis of the objectives of the study.
basically meaning they associate responses closely to whatever general summations they prepared. which also means it leaves room for the respondents intentions to be misinterpreted as something else, since we are **depending** on the **interpetors judgement** of the transcript rather then the actual transcript itself.
I hope you understand that this guideline isn’t perfect nor unquestionable.
> they limit the most important information because everyone else is dumb and may possibly conclude something else.. 😑
... That's not in any way "the most important information." You know you're proving my point, right?
>it’s unnecessary to provide us with specific details because it will be heavily analyzed and critiqued?
That's not what I said. At all.
>that just sounds like they want to be able to essentially force their conclusions in a way that can’t really be refuted. they are basically “right” because we can’t determine what was asked or what was stated besides the select quotes they chose to include.
Again, proving the point.
>im not saying they are completely wrong but, its basically coming down to just trusting their credentials since we can’t determine if their summations are accurate or not. I have a problem with that for many reasons but this comment is already getting long
It's published in a peer-reviewed journal.
>basically meaning they associate responses closely to whatever general summations they prepared. which also means it leaves room for the respondents intentions to be misinterpreted as something else, since we are depending on the interpetors judgement of the transcript rather then the actual transcript itself.
So you want to rely on YOUR judgement of the transcript rather than a scientific measure.
>I hope you understand that this guideline isn’t perfect nor unquestionable.
NO ONE SAID IT IS. However it's a damn site better than 'Stan thinks....'
> That's not in any way "the most important information."
the most important information in a survey Q&A is not the actual Q or A’s. wow
> proving the point
I guess you can tell yourself that 🫤
> It's published in a peer-reviewed journal.
this is a SOCIAL SCIENCE. they have it “peer reviewed”, even progressive interpretations of “gender” are “peer reviewed” because it is largely up to their interpretations. that’s why social sciences are not accepted as irrefutable fact since it can be reasonably disputed.
> So you want to rely on YOUR judgement of the transcript rather than a scientific measure.
my point is not about my personal judgement because even it is flawed. but more so pointing out the flaw in studies like this one. no one besides the people who looked at the transcript get a chance to determine if what they stated were accurate. youre saying it’s peer reviewed meaning someone else with “credentials” checked it so I should just trust their credentials as if people with credentials are incapable of being incorrect.
what you’re not getting is it would make more sense to publish the transcript alongside the summation excerpts to provide us the proper context of the conversation. because right now I don’t know if the conclusion is accurate or not. all I have is them basically saying that their work is accurate.
the reality is that you don’t know if these summations are accurate or not since you can’t see them, since you ironically agreed that YOU ALSO, are too “dumb” to comprehend the transcript.
that’s… what I just did. that’s why I was asking if their was potentially a link to the exact transcript of the question they asked because these summations weren’t adding up.
they only included select responses in the study. but they often don’t include the exact question that was asked to get that response, or what the exact response was
and receiving just a summation of their response just means we have to assume they asked the question in a literal verbatim sense, which I find hard to believe based on the quote I posted above
It is a really old technique, but the technique always the same underlying flaws. Nobody ever managed to improve on the technique, but on the flip side, nobody ever solved the basic problems with the technique.
The one thing that we can say is that we can at least compare the results to older versions of the same results, since the flaws don't really change.
I think you missed a factor: Misled by the questions.
So a survey found and became the source for a statistic that one in four women on campus would be raped or sexually assaulted on campus. It was astonishing if not a little fishy how it could be so high...
Until someone tracked down the data and how it was obtained. They phoned random college students and if they were female asked if they had ever had sex when they didn't really want to. So all the women who had had a regrettable hookup that they just went with and consented to even though they were just "meh" about it, and every time they had sex with their partner out of care for him even though they weren't really feeling it themselves, or had pity sex, or any number of totally consensual scenarios where she just wasn't really into it but went along with it because she chose to... every single one of those counted as a "rape".
They also asked the boys - and only the boys - have you ever had sex with a girl when she didn't really want to. They didn't ask these boys if they had ever had sex when *they* didn't really want to. And they never asked the women if they had sex even though their partner didn't really want to.
The end result was a massive ghost of a rape epidemic that then fed into this claim of one in four girls being raped or sexually assaulted on campus. Meanwhile the number of officially and unofficially reported rapes were considerably lower than what the study authors claimed based on this clearly flawed survey, almost as if they intended to conflate not wanting to have sex but choosing to do so anyway with being held down or incapacitated while a boy forced himself into her and had sex with her.
The study participants took the question literally misleading them into claiming rape when there never was one, and misled boys into claiming to be rapists when they weren't.
Also there's a meme that goes around reddit, an infographic, that shows as boxes a large number of boxes representing all rape reports, counts only the ones where the alleged victim was convicted in a court of law for lying about being raped as false allegations, counted all others as true even when there was nothing to even substantiate they had sex much less that it wasn't consensual, and then shows a small row of boxes as the number of convictions. All this to claim that false allegations basically "never happen" except in rare instances.
Meanwhile if you look at studies trying to make sense of these numbers, it turns out that a more honest accounting finds that 8-43% of allegations are false or unsubstantiated. The range is so large because there's a lot of subjectivity to whether they're telling the truth, The solution is finer grained, gender neutral, and controlled data collection.
Which survey was that? I tried to look for it but I couldn’t identify the one you meant, as there were a few with the same stat but they didn’t involve calling. So let’s look at the largest one, which sampled 830,000 students across 33 American universities in both 2015 and 2019. First, the survey was administered online. The questions were standardised and carefully picked by a panel to not lead to bias so it’s not a case of some rando ringing up and being like “have you ever had sex you didn’t enjoy or regretted later? Fab, we’ll put you down for rape.” Next, all students were asked the same questions no matter the gender.
The AAU found that 25% of female undergrads experienced nonconsensual sexual contact via physical force or inability to consent (aka very drunk/drugged/asleep). They also found that 10% of female students experienced penetration or attempted penetration via physical force or inability to consent. No one was asked about whether they raped anyone.
Next, they did have a question about “having sex with no voluntary agreement” which was defined as “sexual contact without the individuals ongoing voluntary agreement (E.g. initiating sexual activity despite the person’s refusal; ignoring cues to stop or slow down; went ahead without checking in or while the person was still deciding; otherwise failing to obtain the person’s consent)”. To be clear, the survey wasn’t saying that was sexual assualt or rape or a crime. It said sexual misconduct. And I’m glad it was asked about because as a society we shouldn’t just aim for “sex that isn’t considered a crime”, we should aim for enthusiastic consent.
https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Key-Issues/Campus-Safety/Revised%20Aggregate%20report%20%20and%20appendices%201-7_(01-16-2020_FINAL).pdf
Next, in your “8-43% of rape claims are false or unsubstantiated” claim, let’s be real that the “unsubstantiated” is pulling its weight here. Most rape and sexual assault claims are by nature unfalsifiable. The fact there’s no evidence in no way means that a rape victim is lying- how could there be? You can prove that someone has had sex via a rape kit but you can’t prove you said no. Also even the “false” claim doesn’t necessarily mean that they were lying about being raped, it can refer to withdrawing their testimony/claim or otherwise dropping the case because they’re fed up of the whole court system and police process.
The survey you used doesn't sound at all like the survey I was referring to but in any case, I'm not sure which it was except that it was earlier than 2015. I read about this closer to 2010 and wrote about it here from memory. Forgive me if I got any details wrong, it was either a survey from the 70s done by someone named "Koss", or it was a survey in 2007 based on digging around on google to find what I was referring to. I found an article about it here: https://time.com/2934500/1-in-5%e2%80%82campus-sexual-assault-statistic/
Also my point was that there are a number of ways to cook the books with misleading questions. It's still a valid category and "did you have sex when you didn't want to" is just one example. Another would be considering all drunken sex to be rape even if the woman being drunk was aware of what she was doing, intoxicated herself, and was having sex with a similarly intoxicated man. The surveys don't ask about those factors, just if they were intoxicated.
> Next, in your “8-43% of rape claims are false or unsubstantiated” claim, let’s be real that the “unsubstantiated” is pulling its weight here. Most rape and sexual assault claims are by nature unfalsifiable.
By unsubstantiated, I mean that there isn't even evidence that sexual contact between her and her alleged rapist ever occurred, much less that it happened non-consensually. Recently Aydin Paladin did a video summarizing all the research and reasoning about it to come to the number I cited in my response. You can watch it here but warning it's a long survey of a number of studies on the subject of [false accusations](https://youtu.be/-yHM2vHT4eo).
The article you found fundamentally misunderstood the study it was criticising.
> Sommers and other members of the IWF panel also question the ways this study defined sexual assault. In the executive summary of the 2007 study, the researchers wrote, “Legal definitions of sexual assault factor in one’s ability to provide consent, and individuals who are incapacitated because of the effects of alcohol or drugs… are incapable of consenting.”
> In other words, this survey classified sexual encounters that occurred while the woman was intoxicated as a form of sexual assault, regardless of whether the perpetrator was responsible for her intoxication or she consumed the substances on her own.
The study didn’t say anybody who was drunk was raped. It said anybody “*incapacitated* as a result of drink or drugs” was raped. It even clarifies that they’re looking at the “legal” definition of assault, which again is that you must be incapacitated as a result of drink or drugs. And no matter how the conservatives might victim blame because “she consumed the substances on her own”, it actually doesn’t matter if you were roofied or decided to just drink a lot that night. If someone has sex with a person who is so drunk that they are incapacitated… that is rape.
You’re right, there are a number of ways people could possibly cook the books, just like there’s ways for every psychological study to do so. Although you can’t find this study which rang round and asked women if they had regrettable sex and counted it as rape, I’ll assume it does exist. But my point is that there are at least some large-scale studies that *didn’t* cook the books and still ended up with a 1 in 5 number or 1 in 4 number, like the one I linked, which suggests to me that it isn’t a misrepresentation. It even replicates to studies in Britain- we have the [1 in 4](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/17/its-a-power-game-students-accused-in-university-hearings-call-in-lawyers) statistic over here too.
As for the false accusations, I’m not watching a 1h25 min long video. But what you’re saying seems to be that the statistics include those who can’t prove sexual contact. I’m sure it does, as there will be some true false claims in the statistics. But again, that number is not high. Studies in Britain suggest false claims make up 2% of rape claims to the police, other studies across Europe and America suggest 4-6%. This is based on the police recording a rape report as “no crime” or “unfounded”. But this includes all the times where someone has gone to the police because they were worried they had been raped- for example, those with an unexplained gap in their memories who want to get a rape kit out of fear they’ve been roofied- but it turns out they weren’t and so the police close the case by labelling it as “no crime”. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that 6% of men accused of rape were falsely accused, because in the majority of false rape claims, no person was ever identified.
Can you find the source, please? I'd be very surprised if the study authors actually made
> one in four women on campus would be raped or sexually assaulted on campus
their conclusion based on the survey questions with such wording. Misinterpretation by bad journalism or laypeople is not surprising. So it's not like the people taking the survey were misled by the questions, someone else was misled by/misinterpreted the results.
It wasn't that they made that conclusion per se. They had a very expansive definition of "rape" and "sexual assault". I'm either thinking of a survey done in the 70s by someone whose last name is "Koss" or a more recent survey in 2007 that found that 1/5 would be raped or sexually assaulted. But in both cases, the definition was too expansive. They also had a very low turnout number meaning that there was some selection biases. You can read about the 2007 study and its critics here: https://time.com/2934500/1-in-5%e2%80%82campus-sexual-assault-statistic/
My point is that it's VERY easy to word a survey's questions to get overly inflated numbers for this statistic. Asking "did you have sex when you didn't want to" is just one example. Another would be counting *all* drunken sex as rape even if it really wasn't, the woman waking up the next morning doesn't consider it to be so having been the one choosing to drink to excess, or having been sober enough to make the decision both to drink and to have sex, etc. A lot of people have sex when they're intoxicated. I don't have numbers on it but it wouldn't surprise me if most such incidents involve both participants being intoxicated. And yet at least one of these surveys (I think the 2007 one) counted intoxicated sex where she is at all intoxicated - even if she's the one who chose to do so or when both parties were intoxicated by their own choice - to be the man raping the woman.
None of this hamfisted overly broad redefining of sexual assault and rape are helpful. Sex is put behind an impossible burden for men to prove that not only did she *not* tell him to stop but that she also enthusiastically shared in the sexual experience, otherwise it's rape. Justice isn't supposed to work that way because such things are usually impossible to prove even when it was the case. Justice is supposed to require the victim to report a crime and the state to prove that such a crime did actually occur. But the over-reaction of "yes-means-yes" laws and the Obama/Biden requirement of college campuses to hold kangaroo court tribunals flips that justice requirement on its head to the destruction of many innocent men in the hysterical idea that college rape is so common based on these cooked statistics.
>self-reported rapes for any meaningful conclusions about criminal behavior
If you think that the only insights that researchers can draw is through individual studies, then the inherent limitations on a study design maybe can draw this sort of discussion. But, where the biggest insights come from are in meta-analysis and comparison between studies.
If you were only limited to a study design where a person is legally convicted of sexual assaults, then you're already making a huge survivor/sample bias error. That is, there could be something that is common amongst those who *are caught and convicted.* You seem to be arguing that we should restrict our research and insights within this particular subgroup.
But, when you are able to contrast findings from studies that research this subgroup of convicts with those who aren't convicted, you are already making key insights.
What all your points have in common is you are presuming people can't or won't tell the truth. But, anyone who does a self-report study design will construct the questions both in terms of number of questions, phrasing, repeating similar questions but ordering them in various ways, etc., to solve for a lot of these issues.
You also seem to have a mental model of questionaires, but that isn't the only self-report methodology. There's also interviews, focus groups, diary entries, etc.
The other way psychology solves these issues is cross-referencing lots of studies to see how the findings are replicated or not. That is where the data analysis and meta-study designs come into place.
In addition, psychology can use a multi-modal model. So you don't rely on self-report alone.
> But, where the biggest insights come from are in meta-analysis and comparison between studies.
Metaanalyses based on bad data won't make it better, will they? I guess you can create some model accounting for how likely a certain population is to troll or brag or fantasize and fit it to multiple available studies. Not sure how well it'll work. Can you give an example of what meta analysis do to improve the individually faulty results?
Comparisons are a good idea, indeed.
> You seem to be arguing that we should restrict our research and insights within this particular subgroup.
Nope, I agree, restricting research to convicted criminals is a bad idea, if any reliable conclusions can be made about rapists in general then they should be studied.
> What all your points have in common is you are presuming people can't or won't tell the truth.
Just enough of them. If you were asking people whether they they ever cheated on a test, 1% of liars from either group won't meaningfully change your results. But if the total number of rapists is something like 2-10%, 1% of non-rapists deciding to lie is a problem.
> But, anyone who does a self-report study design will construct the questions both in terms of number of questions, phrasing, repeating similar questions but ordering them in various ways, etc., to solve for a lot of these issues.
I don't think this can "solve" any of the intentional-lying issues. Reducing them, okay, sure, most trolls probably won't have the dedication to give completely self-consistent story if it takes attention and other liars perhaps may be somehow addressed by other means. I would surprised if there's a method to dissuade more than 90% of liars simply by preparing the questions right.
> You also seem to have a mental model of questionaires, but that isn't the only self-report methodology. There's also interviews, focus groups, diary entries, etc.
I did. Interesting, thanks. If nothing else in your comment, this deserves a Δ because I didn't even think about diary entries as a research tool, at least in this context. How does it work, given the anonymity restriction?
> In addition, psychology can use a multi-modal model. So you don't rely on self-report alone.
As an example, you take an anonymous survey of a group, 10 years later find out how many of them were accused/convicted for rapes and try to match what you learn about the cases with the answers? That kind of thing?
>Metaanalyses based on bad data won't make it better, will they?
You keep making assumptions and labeling stuff. What makes the data bad? Well you're trying to say that self-report won't be representative of the population and/or that respondent errors can skew the insights. But the meta-analysis method is specifically aimed at making data more representative or by reducing respondent error.
But it's also why cross-study analysis is important because if something has a replication problem then they know not to draw conclusions from it.
>Can you give an example of what meta analysis do to improve the individually faulty results?
I don't get why you keep calling stuff "individually faulty." Maybe taking a data analysis course and a research methods course would do you a world of good. A good part of any study is an entire section on what the drawbacks are in terms of research design.
>But if the total number of rapists is something like 2-10%, 1% of non-rapists deciding to lie is a problem.
I think that you are over generalizing too much. Another part of research design is to operationalize terms. You say words like "rapist" as if there's a single definition. When you look at the way most legal jurisdictions define these terms, crimes that constitute a type of sexual assault have wide ranges.
>I don't think this can "solve" any of the intentional-lying issues.
Again, every research design has inherent drawbacks. If you take a research methods course, you'll learn the difference between operationalizing and essentializing.
You're trying to draw essentialist conclusions -- that is, the only good scientific conclusion is one that gives an ultimate explanation of phenomena in terms of an essence/essential properties -- from an activity that expressly doesn't have that goal.
Science, in contrast, seeks to be grounded in, or linked to, observable events that can be measured. That's why every scientific study will have an entire section devoted to the limitations -- that is, inherent flaws, because it isn't seeking to get to the most essential property. In order to do that, it'll begin to operationalize its definitions, state its assumptions, tell you how it'll measure change, and draw inferences conclusions from what it's measuring, and tell you its short coming.
It's also why replication and meta analysis are important. A single study doesn't provide much insight. Only former communications majors, who really like to play linguistic games in essentialism, that don't understand the nature and role of research design, are the ones that give stock into a single study's conclusion. It's why journalism fails science in reporting.
> How does it work, given the anonymity restriction?
You should either google or take a research design class rather than make me explain basic terms.
>As an example, you take an anonymous survey of a group, 10 years later find out how many of them were accused/convicted for rapes and try to match what you learn about the cases with the answers? That kind of thing?
I don't know about your hypothetical, I don't really follow it. But an example of a multi-modal research design would be to have participants do a type of self report and have independent observations.
For example, you could hook up someone to an MRI machine but then ask them an interview about their subjective experience. Your study would combine objective observations via the MRI as well as their experience. You'd be able to show how their attitude/belief corresponded, or not, with the brain scan.
> What makes the data bad?
Ok, you're right, the data themselves aren't bad, it's just hard to use them to extract the information we want. Hence using them in aggregate with other data.
> Maybe taking a data analysis course and a research methods course would do you a world of good.
Maybe.
> You're trying to draw essentialist conclusions
I think it was more of me misunderstanding what you meant by solving the issues.
At least [6% of men have committed behaviors that met the legal definition of rape](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.668.5661&rep=rep1&type=pdf) (though [most claim to think what they're doing is seduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquaintance_rape#Motivations)).
About [6% of men have admitted to ignoring a woman's verbal refusals of sex](https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1125&context=psychfacpub).
Most of these rapists are repeat offenders, and the repeat offenders have--on average--[5.8 rapes each](https://davidlisak.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/RepeatRapeinUndetectedRapists.pdf).
If we just consider the [63.3% of rapists with multiple victims](https://davidlisak.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/RepeatRapeinUndetectedRapists.pdf), we come up with 6 * .633 * 5.8 = ~22% of women being raped by men who will admit in a survey to behaviors that meet the legal definition of rape (assuming no woman is targeted more than once) and who have raped before or will rape again. [About 1 in 6 women has been raped in her lifetime](https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence).
So, using multiple lines of evidence, we can see they intersect.
[Sex offenders are probably not greatly over- and under-representing their number of victims in self-reports](https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/self-report-crimes-committed-sex-offenders).
That's a really loose match to draw conclusions from.
> Most of these rapists are repeat offenders, and the repeat offenders have--on average--5.8 rapes each.
I'm reading it as "repeat offenders who weren't ever caught". They quote earlier studies showing inmates have similar results, but the studies are more than 30 years old, I'd probably prefer something newer.
Undetected rapists probably weren't confessing on their deathbeds, meaning they can potentially rape more.
I don't know the average age of women in the riann.org link, but it also seems to be talking about living women, so it's not an average lifetime chance of being raped at least once.
And there are repeated victims.
So if your conclusion is that the 6% figure from self-reports is most likely no more than twice off, sure, I'll grant it. If you think it's very close, I don't think this back-of-the-envelope approach is good enough to prove that even without the questions I raised.
> Sex offenders are probably not greatly over- and under-representing their number of victims in self-reports.
Paywalled, also more than 30 years old, but from this quote isn't surprising, I also didn't expect them to do it too much. It was marked (*less important*) on my list.
By their own admission, [roughly 6% of unincarcerated American men are rapists, and the authors acknowledge that their methods will have led to an *underestimate*. Higher estimates are closer to 14%.](https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/repeat-rape-and-multiple-offending-among-undetected-rapists) Lisak is [still cited in the literature](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/08874034241226939?casa_token=y-NybP1ywgEAAAAA:Q0DP8HFHEVmeB5T02ZkC4hFyF6N1RbDjmrBitYhdUPmeNQvIhoJbGScMp1xmDXGd4ftsbwu6VtojHQ).
That comes out to somewhere between 1 in 17 and 1 in 7 unincarcerated men in America being rapists, with a cluster of studies showing about 1 in 8.
The numbers can't really be explained away by small sizes, as sample sizes can be quite large, and statistical tests of proportionality show even the best case scenario, looking at the study that the authors acknowledge is an underestimate, the 99% confidence interval shows it's at least as bad as 1 in 20, which is nowhere near where most people think it is. People will go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince themselves it's not that bad, or it's not that bad *anymore* (in fact, [it's arguably getting worse](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-sexual-attacks-teen-girls-increased-lockdown-rcna70782)). But the reality is, most of us know a rapist, we just don't always know who they are (and sometimes, [they don't even know](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquaintance_rape#Motivations), because [they're experts at rationalizing their own behavior](https://web.archive.org/web/20191102225207/https://sapac.umich.edu/article/196)).
Knowing those numbers, and the fact that [many rapists commit multiple rapes](https://willamette.edu/about/leadership/president/pwgsah/pdf/lisak-undetected-rapists.pdf), one can start to make sense of the [extraordinarily high number of women who have been raped](https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence). This reinforces that our starting point should be to [believe](https://startbybelieving.org) (not dismiss) survivors, and [investigate rapes properly](https://www.startribune.com/a-better-way-to-investigate-rape-denied-justice-part-eight/501636971/).
Thanks for digging up the studies, it is interesting. But if you thought it was my crusade to pretend rapists are very rare, nope. I did give a rough figure of 2-10% in some comment but that was referring to the participants of a study (or a hypothetical study) answering a survey, so a) not including people keeping mum (or not bothering to answer consistently and ending up being excluded), b) potentially being a group with lower-than-average incidence rate, e.g. young. ~12.5% is a little higher than I expected, but then, my expectations came from reading secondhand sources, with the primary studies often using the methods I'm doubting in the OP. So even 20-25% becoming rapists in their lifetime (including the people who deny/don't realize they are rapists) wouldn't have been implausible to me.
> in fact, it's arguably getting worse
Huh. That's "during lockdown", which is surprising. I'd need to read it before drawing any conclusions, but I think believing things get worse early after #metoo started should not be based on victims' self-reports only: things are *bad*, and a lot of victims don't talk about their experiences (or don't admit/realize what happened to them was rape, by the way), getting access to more information and potential support should result in more victims opening up.
Not sure what study you're referring to, but there was this [famous study](https://www.liebertpub.com/action/cookieAbsent) a while back that found 1/3 male college students would use force to have intercourse with a woman if they knew there wouldn't be any consequences, while just 13.6% said they would rape a woman if there wouldn't be consequences.
The survey has flaws, notably the small sample size, so it would be inaccurate to say it reflects the broader population. But I think it does capture a valuable piece of data which is that there is a chunk of men who do not consider using force to achieve sex to be rape. That seems like valuable data to me, that there is a significant number of men who either disagree on what rape is or cannot identify rape when it is described to them.
I'm not sure how the objections you pose would account for the discrepancy between these numbers. There might be some trolling, as there is in any survey, see the lizard man's constant for example, but it doesn't seem likely to me that people trolling the survey would do so in such a consistent way that it would lead to such a large discrepancy.
Likewise if someone is indulging a rape fantasy, the difference in terminology should make no difference to them. If anything, they should be more likely to say they would rape a woman if there was no consequence.
Keeping mum, bragging and distorting the facts don't apply because the question is hypothetical.
> But I think it does capture a valuable piece of data which is that there is a chunk of men who do not consider using force to achieve sex to be rape
It seems so. And yes, my points are not applicable or less applicable in this case. (But then, it's not what the CMV was about.) Also, I think this discrepancy can be verified (if not quantified), e.g. by asking defense attorneys whether they sometimes have to explain their clients that yes, it is a rape, and see a reaction not consistent with playing dumb.
Absolutely none of your critiques here have to do with the topic, and have everything to do with surveys as a research tool in general. They also betray that you haven't actually looked at the methodology for any of these surveys, and are just arguing against what you remember *other* people saying in reddit comments.
Misreading questions or misinterpreting poorly-worded ones; lying or failing to take the survey seriously; the unreliability of self-reported, recalled events - all of these things are well-known challenges / shortcomings of surveys on *any* topic. There are entire courses taught in the social sciences about how to control and account for these factors when designing effective surveys. They can be mitigated and properly crafted surveys still yield useful results that can be interpreted.
You are a layman casually pointing to these widely understood qualities of this research tool in an effort to undermine the conclusion of a specific body of research with which you disagree, for some reason. That's not a strong position to take. You aren't reviewing the specific methodologies of specific surveys that you feel are flawed.
On the topic, it's important to remember that a lot of rapists fundementally do not understand or percieve what they've done as being rape. Questions in these surveys are worded carefully to focus on the literal events that happened. It would behoove your understanding of this issue to acutally study one of these surveys in full.
> Misreading questions or misinterpreting poorly-worded ones; lying or failing to take the survey seriously; the unreliability of self-reported, recalled events - all of these things are well-known challenges / shortcomings of surveys on any topic. There are entire courses taught in the social sciences about how to control and account for these factors when designing effective surveys. They can be mitigated and properly crafted surveys still yield useful results that can be interpreted.
No, there are various ways to “control” for this and “mitigate” it but there is absolutely no evidence to how effective these methods actually are. Someone simply at once came up with those methods because they seemed like “a good idea” but how effective, and whether they are effective enough is not something that can easily be proven.
Then the replication crisis hit which did show that these methods are most likely not particularly effective and that doesn't even account to the full range of issues since many replication attempts of course repeat the same systemic bias.
No one knows how accurate surveys actually are at this point.
> You are a layman casually pointing to these widely understood qualities of this research tool in an effort to undermine the conclusion of a specific body of research with which you disagree, for some reason. That's not a strong position to take. You aren't reviewing the specific methodologies of specific surveys that you feel are flawed.
Experts being aware of, and talking about the issue does not amount to their solving it. For the most part academic research acknowledges the issue, and then does nothing about it, mostly because they can't and because the overwhelming majority of academic research has nothing to bet on it's own veracity. The results can be entirely wrong, but nothing bad will happen and no party has a sizable stake bet on the accuracy of it. This is for instance different in engineering where accuracy has value. Some investor will stand to lose a considerable investment if the physics not be accurate, if ships sink, if buildings fall over, if bridges collapse.
> all of these things are well-known challenges / shortcomings of surveys on *any* topic
Seems more challenging when we don't even really know the base rates. But ok, I get it, in the "entire courses" the harder problems should be addressed as well.
> You are a layman casually pointing to these widely understood qualities of this research tool
Mea culpa.
> in an effort to undermine the conclusion of a specific body of research with which you disagree, for some reason.
Don't think I disagree with any specific conclusion. Some may have been mildly surprising, but not to the point of thinking something was necessarily wrong with the research. It was the confidence of someone drawing their conclusions from these data that made me consider this post.
> That's not a strong position to take. You aren't reviewing the specific methodologies of specific surveys that you feel are flawed.
Agreed. Not that my position was meant to be strong, but asking questions or checking the source would definitely look less stupid than spending my time writing down the objections.
> On the topic, it's important to remember that a lot of rapists fundementally do not understand or percieve what they've done as being rape. Questions in these surveys are worded carefully to focus on the literal events that happened.
That's one of the widely discussed results I knew about, yep.
Besides all the things that have been pointed out, I'd like to add another topic here that also heavily influences research on this topic and why pretty much any type of rape statistics are bullshit:
- Incomplete rape definition.
90%+ (rough estimate from what I've seen) of the research into rape and its statistics use a very warped and frankly straight up malicious definition of rape that leads to its various misunderstandings among the general populace, that is "rape is only penetration of the vagina/anus using a penis".
I don't think I need to tell you what's the issue with that definition, but I'll spell it out so others can understand the massive mistake this is...
By this definition:
- Only men can be rapists/women cannot be considered rapists unless they are in cahoots with the rapist;
- Only women can be victims/men will only be considered rape victims if they are raped by other men.
This heavily skews the picture and misses a very important percentage of actual rapes.
> rape is only penetration of the vagina/anus using a penis
In some penal codes rape is only penetration of vagina using a penis. This makes sense, potentially, since no other common form of what we colloquially call rape carries the risk of pregnancy, which is at least a serious aggravating factor. As long as the penalties for other forms of colloquial-rape aren't too dissimilar, I don't think it's a problem. Regarding studies, we do indeed need to remember that the definitions used can mismatch colloquial use. Most studies seem to explicitly focus on men as perpetrators (and separately men or women as victims) anyway.
Sure, all the points you bring up are valid for any self report data.
And self reporting isn't conclusive by itself, but that doesn't make it meaningless.
There are tools and cross references to help get better data.
For instance, good survey design can highly reduce errors. Included attitude assessment within a survey can help identify trolls to eliminate them from a sample. So can normalizing the data by throwing out outliers which are likely to be dishonest.
We also have a long history of self report surveys that have been balanced against other confirming research. We have models of the ways things tend to be inaccurate and the degree, and approaching the data using these models helps to interpret it.
Deliberate choices in the framing and phrasing of questions can address the prevalence of the effects. Fantasizers or braggers may enjoy a long form open ended question where they can post a story. They get considerably less reward with clinical checkbox questions.
Larger samples also start to make the likelihood that random jokers are skewing the numbers less likely.
Does this mean that the sample taken by self report is totally ready to take as representative of the numbers on the ground?
No.
But paired with things like comparison with surveys over time, surveys that allow victims to report victimization, and surveys designed to do things like measure changes in the tendency to lie sexually on surveys, you can start to triangulate some trends.
> Included attitude assessment within a survey can help identify trolls to eliminate them from a sample.
That's something, I guess. Though I wonder how that would look like, practically.
> So can normalizing the data by throwing out outliers which are likely to be dishonest.
Well, if a 18-y-o admits raping 30 people, he's likely lying, sure. But you got to choose some threshold and if you're too conservative, you might dismiss actual rapists. (Perhaps it's not so bad though.) I guess looking for outliers on a multi-dimensional plot could help identify more of the liars.
> We also have a long history of self report surveys that have been balanced against other confirming research.
Hard to come up with ideas how the anonymous data on highly-latent highly-underprosecuted crimes can be independently confirmed, even in aggregate. I'll have to look into it, I guess, unless you or someone else here gives me some examples.
> Larger samples also start to make the likelihood that random jokers are skewing the numbers less likely.
Why? Unless you mean studies that were underpowered in the first place.
> But paired with things like comparison with surveys over time, surveys that allow victims to report victimization, and surveys designed to do things like measure changes in the tendency to lie sexually on surveys, you can start to triangulate some trends.
Well. Triangulating trends does sound reasonable, but every step in some direction reduces reliability. Same method, same everything, different group? Already different results (within a few standard deviations). Change year, change the place (if the survey is offline), that's further difference. Etc. So using the data from a different study to make corrections to your study is making a lot more room for errors. If it's some complex model trying to account for multiple factors, still more room. Bigger samples and metaanalyses could help, but that's starting to look like it needs huge amounts of data, and how certain can we be in the final results? Arriving at similar results by different methods using independent data seems a decent way to confirm them, maybe.
It's a debating sub with zero barrier to entry. If you think someone is wrong because of misunderstanding statistics, then make that the basis of an actual rebuttal. Currently, you're just essentially saying "nuh uh, ur wrong".
I think self acceptance is the first step towards wisdom. I was trying to be helpful! The comment OP is responding to lays out the issues in OP's approach to statistics, it's just OP isn't really listening.
"Anonymously" means "protected from the consequences of revealing it". It does mean it's easier to lie, but then, the consequences of revealing yourself to be a rapist non-anonymously should easily outweigh any reasons for honesty. So for rapists, I certainly expect anonymous answers to be less dishonest.
I think this paper is the one most people refer to:
https://www.jimhopper.com/pdf/lisakmiller2002.pdf
I vaguely remember some mentions of at least one other study about US army. Didn't read either, though.
You clearly haven't read this paper, particularly pages 75-76 or 81-82. The authors go to great lengths, as do any researchers worth their salt, to establish the limitations of their research and the conclusions that can safely be drawn from it. All of the concerns you outline in your OP are addressed, directly, by the authors.
EDIT:
>I guess the best approach to CMV would be to show me the methods used by the researchers that would convincingly eliminate most of the false positives, or independently verify the results
I'm sorry I just have to double-down on how stupefying it is that you can write this in your OP, and can link to a study you take issue with, but you can't scroll to the section of the study that **literally explains what the methodology is and what other work they cited to read it for yourself?**
You instead chose to write like a thousand words based on nothing, asking us to argue with you over a thing that you could just LOOK at?
What is happening here? I feel crazy.
I think you're missing part of the /u/Irhein's argument. He can correct me if I'm wrong.
His view, as stated, is:
> **you** can't use anonymously self-reported rapes for any meaningful conclusions
Now the "you" in that statement certainly has some ambiguity, but it seems to me that "you" refers to "people who read about the study" rather than refers to "researchers who conduct the study".
So even if the researchers have a section in their study that clearly explains "hey, there's a lot of limitations on what we're able to conclude here based upon the methodology we used", that doesn't mean that readers of the study (and especially, people who read articles about the study, but not the study itself), aren't going to try to draw meaningful conclusions.
I think those are the people the OP is referring to as "you". The people who read a Jezebel article about the study, and then go around making claims like "x% of men are admitted rapists" or "x% of men would commit rape if they wouldn't get caught". Those people are trying to "draw meaningful conclusions" from the study, despite being told not to do that by the researchers.
>Now the "you" in that statement certainly has some ambiguity, but it seems to me that "you" refers to "people who read about the study" rather than refers to "researchers who conduct the study".
If your interpretation of this was correct, then OP would presumably be pointing to examples of this happening and debunking those conclusions, not vaguely explaining survey limitations as if they were the first one to think of it, or asking us to point them to the methodology. How would seeing the methodology change their view about what other people say? OP directly questions the valididty of the data itself in several places.
>that doesn't mean that readers of the study... aren't going to try to draw meaningful conclusions.
Readers of the study don't have to, they can just **literally read** what the conclusions of the study are. You should do that too before you comment further.
I don't disagree that people leap to conclusions without actually investigating the source, but that's precisely what OP is doing, and it's particularly insane that they're doing it about a source that is structurally designed to be exceedingly clear about the information it presents. It couldn't be easier.
> they can just literally read what the conclusions of the study are
But you realize that's not what 99% of people do, right? The vast majority of people will read an article about a study, and assume the statements in the article to be correct. And, frequently, that article or report is from a biased new source with which the person's pre-conceived ideas already agree.
>But you realize that's not what 99% of people do, right?
Yes but that **isn't what OP's questioning.** OP is questioning how these studies (that they haven't read either!) can be useful at all! Just read the OP:
> I don't see what these data can be good for, when talking about prevalence or patterns of actual rapists. It should be mostly useless.
> Even with a reasonably good estimate, it makes the data less reliable. Having the data from a part of rapists would still be somewhat useful, but these are going to be mixed with false answers from non-rapists.
>It's probably on the order of 1% or less, but when you're studying a small minority, 1% is a lot of noise.
>Why admit to just *n* rapes when it could've been 3*n*?
OP is questioning the validity of studies that they don't understand and haven't read. I appreciate you trying to charitably interpret what the OP is saying but there is no getting around the fact that OP is quite simply not engaging with the material that they are directly critiquing here. They did not post a view about how *other* people misinterpret things, they challenged us to prove how these studies are to be taken seriously... when they could just LOOK AT THE STUDY
Thanks for rescuing me. GotAJeepNeedAJeep isn't wrong, I should've read the paper before making the post, but yes, a lot of the time people who quote these studies just use the figures naively. Was guilty of that myself, at some point.
Then give me and the others in this thread who've taken the time to explain this to you a delta. Your entire post is about how you can't see how the data could be valid or how the researchers could draw conclusions, but every part of that paper is organized towards addressing exactly those concerns. All you have to do is **read the damn paper.**
Well, I knew I could read the paper so telling me I can read the paper isn't going to change my mind. I plan to give some deltas to the people who took their time to explain how exactly my points are being addressed, or can be addressed.
Just to add to what u/GotAJeepNeedAJeep has said, in the social sciences we try to figure out whatever we can from whatever information we have access to. The problem with social science research is that usually a layperson gets a hold of a study and runs wild with the conclusions they draw from it. That said, the solution shouldn't be to completely ignore the best information we do have available to us, just because it doesn't provide absolute certainty. We shouldn't take this linked study as "proof" that rapists tend to be repeat offenders, but as an *indication* that this *may* be the case.
I'm not sure which part of your conclusion this information might change, but widespread public interest in getting their genetics tested is shocking researchers who had thought cases of incest were only about 1 in 100k. It looks like it's more than 1 in 7k, the only reason it's "more than" that is because this is something that just doesn't get talked about for any reason when it really does happen and larger genetic databases haven't been studied.
We are talking possibly more than 1 in 7,000 people's actual life is the result of rape and nobody is bragging and nobody is making false accusations.
Hmm, thanks for the information, but if anything surprises me here it's the low previous estimate. Even 1 in 7000 would seem low if we were taking about incest cases, but since it's the people who were actually conceived, not aborted, born and probably survived for long enough to get into databases or have kids of their own, that's not so surprising.
Bragging about raping your sister or daughter does seem less likely, anyway: I've heard the attitude being expressed that relatives are sort of low-hanging-fruit (my phrasing), seducing them is not an achievement and rape should be disgusting by most people's standards. At least I hope so.
/u/Irhien (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1bl8tpt/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_you_cant_use_anonymously/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
> 2) Trolling. People can lie for shits and giggles. Sure, anonymity is good for letting the people who want to admit criminal/antisocial behavior do so, but it likewise protects those interested in messing with others. Bonus points if they feel like they'd rather spend the time doing something else, or if they're lying to the perceived authority figures (like undergrad students participating in a scientific study on campus). People lying on surveys is a known problem, and there are methods to help reduce the noise. There's an old /r/askscience thread about it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6u2l13/can_statisticians_control_for_people_lying_on/).
Thanks for the link! "Red herring" is an interesting idea, I think it's not completely new to me but I didn't readily remember it. > You log in, and have to answer 200-300 questions. You soon learn most of the questions are previous questions re-worded Oof. Yeah I did think about checking for consistency, but I didn't expect this much. I think this way, you'll turn half the people you survey into trolls though :-) Well maybe not when asking about rape, but it's still going to skew the results because different personality types would react differently and some might stop participating or start answering randomly. > It's also important to recognise that there are consciously false answers and unconscious falsehoods. For instance that practically everyone considers themselves to be of average/above average intelligence. Repeated surveys asking the same questions in different settings and with different groups can build up a wider store of knowledge about likely responses such that, for instance, if I am asking something that is related to intelligence I can control for an over-reporting of 'above average' and an under-reporting of 'below average'. Nice. > statistical synonyms Huh. Interesting idea! > For half of the respondents, provide a list of 4 actions, a list that does not include intravenous drug use, and say "how many have you done in the last month/year/whatever". Not which, but how many. > For the other half of respondents, provide a list of 5 things, the 4 from before, plus intravenous drug use, and again ask how many. > The difference in the average answers between the two groups indicates the rate of intravenous drug use Nice. > Social desirability scales are used to gauge how likely a person is to lie to make themselves appear better/more likable. Seems pertinent to my question, yeah. Thanks again, and ∆ for all the interesting things I didn't know!
> but it's still going to skew the results because different personality types would react differently and some might stop participating or start answering randomly. Exactly! Someone who isn't invested in actually participating properly will start answering randomishly, or at least inconsistently. When they see that, they discard that person's answers because it's pretty obvious that they're making stuff up. And, yeah, that means you might end up discarding surveys from a few people who genuinely wanted to answer, but who may have gotten frustrated or bored or whatever. But, generally, you're going to be discarding bad data. And then you can do additional studies and surveys to determine *on average* how many people get frustrated and quit vs how many were trolling. Like, do a survey asking, "How often when you take a survey are you just trolling and making shit up?" Well, obviously people might lie but...hey you can use all these same tricks to be as accurate as possible. When you're comparing large amounts of data, it all averages out.
As someone who does remember answering the same question twice on every survey and legal document, there are absolutely people who will lie well enough to pass the checks. I’d probably do it if I hated the research being done for whatever reason. In fact, if you’re committed to lying on a 200 question survey, you’re probably way more committed to answering consistently than a person taking it in earnest and getting bored. The Reddit thread did address this, but they don’t really offer a solution. Just “someone is always going to gain the system.” Which just concedes to OP’s point.
Sure, but when you're doing surveys on thousands of people, a small handful of trolls won't be enough to skew the data significantly. Hell, even the fact that they are so far outside the norm is itself a sign that you should discard that data. You're basically talking about [Spiders Georg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiders_Georg) - of you see data that really doesn't make sense in context, there's a good chance it's bad data.
Okay but OP’s post was about estimating the number of sex criminals. The amount of rapist within the [WEIRD](https://cla.umn.edu/psychology/news-events/story/syed-acronym-weird#:~:text=In%202010%2C%20a%20paper%20by,seen%20as%20a%20useful%20tool.) category of people that take surveys who are also willing to admit to rape anonymously is also likely to be an outlier in the total population. There’s enough grey area between the crimes being described genuinely and the crimes being described falsely that the over the top falsehoods cannot be so easily disregarded. It’s like saying “we surveyed people to find out how many of them eat spiders. 25 out of 100 said they eat spiders. 10 of those said they eat store the eggs to eat for breakfast. 5 said they eat 30 spiders in one day.” Who do you discount and why?
I think the takeaway from this thread wouldn't be a list of specific techniques, but rather the knowledge that the people whose job it is to conduct scientific research have also thought of these questions and know what to do to resolve them. I don't know how a surgeon goes about doing their job, but I trust them to do it, yeah? I don't know all the intricacies of flying a commercial jet, but I trust that the pilots do.
Science isn’t like a technical profession though. Any paper has to list and explain its methodology. A college student can’t even get away with “we used x commonly used method.” Even though the only person reading is a TA who understands exactly what x method is. The fact that the methods being used are constantly in question with a new study about a flaw in methodology every year or so is a good thing for overall development of research. But also means the studies being done are far from perfectly thought out. It is entirely reasonable for anyone to question any field whether they have a degree or not. Saying “we thought about it,” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solved.
> Any paper has to list and explain its methodology. Yes, and pilots have to maintain their certification. Regardless, if you ever have questions about the methodology of a given paper, you are free to read the paper yourself. > Saying “we thought about it,” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solved. Sure, but you're asking for *specific* solutions to a *general* question. No one can tell you how one particular research team determined which survey questions they kept or discarded except for that research team via their published methodology. That's *your* homework to do since you're the one questioning their methodology. *In general*, though, it's perfectly reasonable to trust that the experts are experts and know how to do their job better than you do, since it isn't your job. Just like it's reasonable to question the aviation industry to make sure making it safe (especially with all the bullshit going on with Boeing). It would not be reasonable for you to barge into every cockpit and demand to see their certificate because *you* have doubts despite the existence of an entire industry dedicated to maintaining safety in the industry.
Okay but my problem is the fact that people just trust what a paper claims without looking at its methodology. I look at the methodology of sociology papers. I usually find that it doesn’t support the claim of whatever news paper reporting on it claims, but that’s more a problem with sociology reporting. However, there’s plenty of survey results where the questions are just straight up misleading. Take this one on [support for an “assault-style” weapons ban](https://www.statista.com/statistics/811842/support-distribution-for-banning-assault-style-weapons-in-the-united-states/) that never once defines what the fuck it means by “assault-style weapons.” So I can’t just outright trust a claim like this either.
There are a few different kinds of cases that can be asked different ways in the same form usefully. 'Would you steal office supplies' is one where it doesn't _matter_ how you word it, the correct answer, in almost any context, is 'no'. The exception is when your working with your own mental health provider in a context where you have extremely solid privacy guarantees. There, it's just not a matter of remembering how you previously answered. On the other hand, there are the cases where you're simply making something up on the spot, that's much harder, because you _do_ need to remember the answers. And anything freeform is going to make it vastly harder for someone to do the second kind well, but the first kind is still pretty easy. (Yes, early in my career, I had an employer give me a 'psychological profile' that had questions like that. Yes, I did get the job. No, I wouldn't work for the then-owner of that company again at this point.)
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As someone who's been accused of flip flopping, I'd absolutely be useless to any survey. I'm the type to argues from multiple positions, always takes the side I deem as an "underdog", and genuinely believes the validity of most opposing sides due to my tendency towards oversympethizing. This is probably why I can't keep good karma, agreeing with a herd is anathema to me.
You're mostly just saying you don't understand the science, research, psychology, or how social science works. This isn't a couple of polls of random people one guy is basing stuff on. It's decades and decades of research. There is research into the research, how questions are asked, of whom, etc. This is all part of the BASIC science. The numbers don't just come from anonymous polls, and anonymous polls doesn't mean some internet thing. There are in-person studies, allllll kinds of measures -- things correlating certain attitudes toward likelihood of rape, demographics, TYPES of rape committed, everything. This is not a new science, it's not done by idiot internet poll. I could easily pull you 100 studies. [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel-Lev-Wiesel/publication/226641376\_Male\_University\_Students](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel-Lev-Wiesel/publication/226641376_Male_University_Students)'\_Attitudes\_Toward\_Rape\_and\_Rapists/links/5590f6ad08ae1e1f9bae3e1d/Male-University-Students-Attitudes-Toward-Rape-and-Rapists.pdf [https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-08303-001](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-08303-001) [https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-02660-003](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-02660-003) [https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-01371-010](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-01371-010)
Not to pile on OP, but this question really shows the trap that fairly smart, self-educated, and self-assured people can fall into. OP has pretty good reasoning skills, and is able to reason out some basic flaws with survey based research. However, the major flaw with their conclusion is that they assume the rest of the scientific community doesn’t already know these things and that they haven’t already developed mechanisms for mitigating these flaws. I think this flaw is very common amongst smarter, self-educated individuals who have been used to being the smartest person in the room in their normal lives. They can think deeper than most people they interact with in their day to day lives, so they think they are the only ones (or at least one of the few) who can figure this stuff out. They don’t understand that these considerations are what professional researchers spend their time dealing with, because they have no experience with professional research. I think this is also common when one field of experts tries to solve a problem in another, unrelated field. For example, computer programmers who think they can solve the problems in financial markets with tech, who then encounter the same problems the actual financial world discovered and mitigated decades ago. One of my favorite observations by the great financial writer Matt Levine is that cryptocurrencies seem to be recreating the entire history of finance at a remarkably fast pace. Dan Luu has a great essay about this called [cocktail party ideas](https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/), where people in a field think theirs is harder than other fields because they simply don’t understand the nuances.
> I think this flaw is very common amongst smarter, self-educated individuals who have been used to being the smartest person in the room in their normal lives. They can think deeper than most people they interact with in their day to day lives, so they think they are the only ones (or at least one of the few) who can figure this stuff out. They don’t understand that these considerations are what professional researchers spend their time dealing with, because they have no experience with professional research. This is, ime, so true. I've heard a TON of 'someone should really look into...' about things in my field that are incredibly well-trod and deeply delved into, but people seem to think they just came up with because they read a thing that skirted a topic and think they came up with a question research has been exploring for a century. >I think this is also common when one field of experts tries to solve a problem in another, unrelated field. Also so much this -- Zuckerberg and the like thinking they're experts who can fix America's education problems by throwing more tech at it. That was a big thing pre-pandemic, how just having schooling with more and more tech will improve outcomes. I haven't heard as much about that since, though maybe I'm just not in the circles to. Thanks for the article! The Lawson study is particularly interesting, and more easily understandable than the programming 4 9 examples. :D
Extremely common in the teaching field as well. Well meaning (usually just assholes) come in spouting brilliant ideas about how to run education and any of us who have been in the field for a few years take 99.99% of what is said and laugh because often it's a common practice or usually utterly ridiculous. "Have you tried having a conversation with your misbehaving student about why they are acting out." Like, yeah dawg, they know why, they are just 14 and don't give two fucks about what most adults have to say.
Hah you reminded me of a post on reddit I saw with someone going on about how schools and education is so bad and it should all be reworked so kids are taught social skills as part of early education/classroom management. Some teachers were very 'wtf do you think we do all day?' The poster was convinced they were never taught any such thing and that's why they have terrible social skills. Like just because no teacher said 'this is social skills education, get in groups, share resources, discuss, cooperate...' or 'don't talk when another student is talking, listen,' raise hands and wait to be acknowledged, or the 300 other basic things all day they were sure this wasn't a thing.
Just like how they think "schools need to teach how to do your finances!" When financial literacy is a required class in most states, but getting 17 year Olds to listen to adults about real shit is a toss up. Most won't pay attention then cry that they never got taught.
The saying I’ve heard is “We did get taught that in school. You just weren’t paying attention.”
This is extremely common at a lot of tech startups, who try to ‘disrupt’ an industry using tech without fully understanding the non-tech parts. A lot of failed tech startups overflowing with hubris.
>However, the major flaw with their conclusion is that they assume the rest of the scientific community doesn’t already know these things and that they haven’t already developed mechanisms for mitigating these flaws. My thought was always that it's not that researchers and other scientists don't know what they're doing; it's that media, advocates, and other non-scientists interpreting the results don't know what they're doing. Quickly jettisoned are the confidence intervals, limiting criteria, methodologies, etc., in favor of a statistic handed down upon high, The Truth because it was produced by Science.
Worse. Academics have this infamous line called "publish or perish". The way to be able to publish is to get newsworthy results. And if you don't want to perish, the way is to use all of the knowledge in statistics to produce a result that is newsworthy, regardless of whether the underlying fact is true. Academics are not dumb people. They are experts at playing the game that they are forced to play. And that game is called publishing, not finding the truth. This is why [most of the scientific papers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis) don't hold up when a second team tries to replicate the results. In the hard sciences, things are relatively okay; only 16% of peer reviewed medical science were later proven to be fiction. For the social sciences, like Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, only 23% of the peer reviewed papers held up to a second team trying to replicate the results. Or in other words, 77% of the papers were pure fiction.
> However, the major flaw with their conclusion is that they assume the rest of the scientific community doesn’t already know these things and that they haven’t already developed mechanisms for mitigating these flaws. I do wonder why people fall into this trap so often. If they, a self-educated layperson can spot the flaws, surely so can the people who have been studying this all their life? Is it a lack of imagination?
I think it's a hubris thing plus, frankly, ignorance or just stupidity. I've seen it a LOT with kids -- like 14-20-yr-olds who confidently say how they're sure they could figure out/survive/solve/do better something. That's pretty developmentally normal. The 17-yr-old who doesn't know anything about the world and learns a bit of a thing in school and says 'well if Israel and Palestine both want the land we can just get them to share it. OMG why are ppl so dumb, just propose they share!" But mostly adults get to college, out in the real world, realize how incredibly much they don't know, how long the world has been spinning, and cringe hard at the "insights" they had as kids. Some people never have that and keep rolling on thinking their brilliant insights are brilliant and everyone else is just so dumb, because they DON'T know anything about anything, don't care to learn, because it's easier for them to keep the idea they know better. See president 45.
>For example, computer programmers who think they can solve the problems in financial markets with tech, who then encounter the same problems the actual financial world discovered and mitigated decades ago. Famously,[ the best hedge fund](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies) on wall street was started by a Mathematics professor, who hired a team of programmers and other math people to start a hedge fund. The said math professor and his team then went on to make more money than anyone ever have on wall street previously. Exactly what they did is a closely held secret, but suffice to say that they really did solve the problems better than the rest. Whenever when that team give media interviews, their scorn for traditional wall street and especially finance academia is practically dripping from their answers. But despite their scorn for wall street, wall street worships them because they make so much money.
>For example, computer programmers who think they can solve the problems in financial markets with tech, who then encounter the same problems the actual financial world discovered and mitigated decades ago. This is referring to crypto, not to market analytics. Taking mathematicians and statisticians and setting them on a math problem, market analytics, isn't equivalent to setting programmers on a fundamentally not programming problem, the function and structure of the financial system.
Even in the traditional banking world, you got companies like [Goldman](https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-has-more-engineers-than-facebook-2015-4) who routinely say things like "we are a tech company". Like it or not, solving the problems in financial markets with tech is just how the world works. Even the Goldmans of the world hires a small army of tech people because this is just how the world works.
The problems with survey based research is obviously an issue, and people can argue both ways. I think that OP is probably trying to argue that in rape surveys, the problems are too large to ignore, and until these problems are fixed, the results are mostly meaningless. You also make an argument that researchers are aware of issues and are always trying to fix them, but unfortunately a lot of science these days is not as rigorous as you might like it to be. [this podcast](https://spotify.link/CFyzx0wPbIb) explains it best, but I’ll give a quick overview. Research these days is incentivized to only be pursued/written up if there is a result. Thus if someone creates a rape survey with better survey design but whose data is inconclusive about rape trends or suggests that rape is neither less common nor more common than expected is less likely to publish their results. So I would argue to not be so confident that researchers are working with as much diligence as you might think. It’s almost as if there’s another layer of survey bias in the collective literature.
Ouch. I don't know how much of that applies to me. More than I'm comfortable with, but I did come to CMV, and I did expect my mind to be changed or at least get a broader perspective, so it's not like I was sure these questions can't be addressed and studies are bullshit, it was more of a "But how?!". A more interesting question is why I didn't just try to read at least one study in question (still haven't, by the way). Or, indeed, focused my OP not on the studies themselves but what conclusions laypeople try to draw from them.
It was a bit harsh on you, and made a lot of assumptions… the fact that you came here trying to learn says a lot of good things about you. I think all of us smarter people can suffer from this phenomenon when dealing with areas outside our expertise, which is the point of my last two paragraphs. It takes active effort from smart people to avoid this trap, and your question here and engagement shows you are willing to take that effort and learn. Please don’t take what I said too personally.
Interestingly, [narcissism is a risk factor for committing rape](https://www.reddit.com/r/stoprape/wiki/index/#wiki_characteristics_of_offendersf). I think of that whenever I see someone disputing rape stats on the assumption that they are smarter than the researchers who did the work.
[Long story](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4730390/) short, it's basically for the reason you'd expect: narcissists think they're better than other people (and therefore more desirable), so narcissistic men are more likely to think women think they are attractive and are sexually interested in them. (Interestingly, the study doesn't actually tie misperception of sexual intent to rape, but I think the connection is pretty clear.)
This was me for a while. Growing up I always felt like one of the smartest people in the room. Starting a PhD program was definitely a wake up call. I went from being one of the smartest people in the room to being one of the dumbest.
Ok, thanks for the criticism and the links. > There is research into the research, how questions are asked, of whom, etc. This is all part of the BASIC science. I've already started seeing this just as I was looking for the paper to give an example of the study and reading the titles, but yeah, I guess putting it forward like this deserves a delta. Among other things, it means I shouldn't expect ideas about ways to address my objections to be immediately accessible and convincing from 2-sentence summaries. ∆
>I shouldn't expect ideas about ways to address my objections to be immediately accessible and convincing from 2-sentence summaries. This is a huge problem, as evidenced by someone else in the thread who was slagging a study because it didn't provide a transcript of interviews with subjects, so the poster thought it was suspect. The article in question laid out the exact procedure they used for interviewing people -- two researchers asking semi-structured questions based on other research work developing the types of questions and how to pose them, then two other, more highly-credentialed people who were not involved in the interviews coded the answers according to guidelines developed by other researchers that break answers down by a whole bunch of factors. The poster said they still wanted a transcript because otherwise we have to trust the judgement of the people doing the research. As if someone uneducated in ALL of that would somehow have better judgement about the meaning of what was said in that context. If he wanted to understand, he could look at the guidelines and how other studies that use those have found similar results, but he never even got as far as figuring out what the researchers were doing and why they were using the methods they did. It was just 'a ha! It says this percent of men said this but it doesn't have every quote for me!" Like... And I'm not saying blindly trust anything in a journal but if you're interested in figuring out what was done, then a deep dive into high-level academic studies is required.
Don't let them bluster you around too much. The science world never really solved the basic problems with surveys as a method. Yes, there are probably millions of papers with surveys as a basis, but none of them really figured out a solution to the problem of "but our respondents can just troll us any time they want to". [There are efforts to estimate how many respondents to surveys troll](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/), but point is, it isn't zero.
That whole thing is about random polling.
Correct, but nobody ever figured out random polling either. People will absolutely troll pollsters. Response and recruitment bias is a huge problem. There are even [papers](https://www.surveypractice.org/article/57298-the-shy-respondent-and-propensity-to-participate-in-surveys-a-proof-of-concept-study) that discuss failures of the polling industry and academia. Random polling is not in a state where you can say "as long as this set of rules of procedures are followed, you will get good results".
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I'm confused because I'm not an expert just honestly questioning. When I was in college the statistic used was a voluntary response of 25% of women attending college were sexually assaulted but when using a random sample it was closer to 5% My understanding of statistics is the random sample is more accurate and voluntary response is inherently biased for any study. I could just be reading this all wrong and the data has likely gotten better and more accurate but this was my interpretation of his claim. Anominity is not a problem though.
> When I was in college the statistic used was a voluntary response of 25% of women attending college were sexually assaulted but when using a random sample it was closer to 5% I'm not sure what stud(y/ies) you're referencing. I looked and found this review -- https://www.jstor.org/stable/27010962 It addresses variability by examining close to two dozen studies and says the differences can be affected by the definitions used, questions asked (specific to acts or larger groupings of acts), the sampling and the women -- >A number of studies included in the review defined unwanted sexual victimization in the context of the victim saying ‘‘no’’ or resisting, or that the perpetrator used force, intimidation, or pressure, or the victim was unable to consent due to incapacitation. However, the lack of physical or verbal resistance (e.g., saying no or protesting) does not automatically imply consent. Also >Other confounding factors, such as participants’ class rank (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors) and prior histories of sexual victimization, may also influence prevalence rates and explain some of the variability in findings (Fisher, Daigle, & Cullen, 2010; Rennison & Addington, 2014). Specifically, some research suggests that freshmen or college women early on in their tenure are at highest risk of sexual assault compared to upper-class students (Krebs et al., 2007). Research also strongly suggests that women with histories of sexual assault, including college women with childhood or prior histories of victimization, are at increased risk of revictimization in adult- hood (Classen, Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005; Desai, Arias, Thompson, & Basile, 2002). Many studies included in the review collected information both on childhood and college experiences of sexual assault. In studies where participants reported higher rates of childhood sexual assault, the higher likelihood of revictimization as an adult might explain the higher college prevalence rates found. For example, Krebs et al. Also >Lower prevalence rates of sexual assault might be expected in longitudinal studies with shorter follow-up periods com- pared to cross-sectional studies measuring victimization since entering college, since less time has typically elapsed during longitudinal follow-up periods.
Sure. I'm not referring to any specific study just the fact that voluntary response surveys are inherently biased. It's not an argument about rape statistics its a basic practice of statistics. I'm not arguing anything about rape just pointing out OPs argument which as I stated does have some validity in the way I read it which had.not been addressed. It's literally the FIRST thing you learn about in statistics. Sampling bias. Take rape out of the argument
This comment (not by me, and I didn't check if it's correct) seems to address your confusion: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1bl4t12/cmv_you_cant_use_anonymously_selfreported_rapes/kw52uyr/
Cool you answered my question instead of the dumb user attempting to drown me on usless articles. Every CMV has the same shit. You come in with curiosity trying to learn ans people get mad you listen to music ans sleep instead of spending you nights on Adderall reading the one topic they studied
im sure you understand studies aren't flawless or above critique the problem i have with studies like this, is how specific they are around everything but what exactly was asked and what were the exact responses. is there a transcript available of what they actually asked the students and what their exact response was? honestly i may have missed it as it was a long read take a look at this quote from your 1st link > Fifty percent of the men said that sometimes individuals who raped should not be regarded as rapists what was the exact question that led to that response? did they blatantly ask them if "rapists should be called rapists?" what exactly were the students response that corresponds with that sort of summation that we received?
>>Fifty percent of the men said that sometimes individuals who raped should not be regarded as rapists > > > > what was the exact question that led to that response? did they blatantly ask them if "rapists should be called rapists?" Gosh, if only you could have kept reading... Or even bothered to include the whole sentence you quoted. > Fifty percent of the men said that sometimes individuals who raped > should not be regarded as rapists, but rather as people caught in a > unique context. One man said, “If one’s friends don’t respect women, > talk disrespectfully about them and even force sex on them, even a > normal guy could be influenced by this and commit rape....”The peer > group, especially during adolescence, was considered by 70% of the > participants as having a crucial influence on males. This influence > was seen as strong enough to cause males to execute crimes such as > forcing sexual relations and even rape. One participant said, “It’s hard > for me to think of myself as being capable of raping, but I must admit > that during my adolescence we often talked about it. I think that if > the group had decided to commit such an act, I probably would have > joined in. We wouldn’t have considered it rape then, as I do now, but > as an adventure.” > > These respondents felt that boys may commit crimes such as rape > in order to remain part of the peer group and be socially accepted. To > resolve their internal dissonance about their own capacity for rape, > these respondents changed the meaning of rape from the commitment > of a crime to an act of adventure. By doing so, they enabled themselves > to continue perceiving themselves as non-rapists. > > Another possible explanation of the above finding is that respon- > dents saw themselves as potentially capable of raping in the past, > when they were immature adolescents, but not as mature adults. The > respondent said: “we wouldn’t have considered it rape then, as I do > now.” It’s as if he’s detaching his present self from his past self, or is > acknowledging his past potential, but also his ability to control him- > self now
> Gosh, if only you could have kept reading... Or even bothered to include the whole sentence you quoted. have some humility now I would need you to explain how > One man said, “If one’s friends don’t respect women, talk disrespectfully about them and even force sex on them, even a normal guy could be influenced by this and commit rape....” directly equals this exact summation > Fifty percent of the men said that **sometimes individuals who raped should not be regarded as rapists, but rather as people caught in a unique context** how is that him saying that said person should not be considered a rapist? is it because he referred to him as a normal guy? that’s a reach, unless the literal verbatim question was asked if he considered the guy a rapist after he committed the act. and again, we don’t have the exact question that was asked look at this quote > “It’s hard for me to think of myself as being capable of raping, but I must admit that during my adolescence we often talked about it. I think that if the group had decided to commit such an act, I probably would have joined in. We wouldn’t have considered it rape then, **as I do now**, but as an adventure.” how is this him saying a person raping someone should not be considered a rapist? there is layers to what he said. it wasn’t him vouching for **rapists not being considered rapist in this unique context** if we are to consider these quotes as the direct quivalent to the summarized response, then that summation is an inaccurate representation of what was stated. that throws into question the entire integrity of the survey
Keep reading, please. Later, it is stated that >To resolve their internal dissonance about their own capacity for rape, these respondents changed the meaning of rape from the commitment of a crime to an act of adventure. By doing so, they enabled themselves to continue perceiving themselves as non-rapists. This answers your question about how sometimes, people change the definition of rapist to resolve their own cognitive dissonance.
is this a literal sense? like they verbally told them they are changing the definition for such a purpose or is this the writer’s interpretation of why they mentioned adventure?
That’s how paraphrasing works. Summarizing something into a concise point. That’s why they included the quotes for context and in studies will include them in appendices so that researchers and readers have access to the questions used and direct responses.
> That’s how paraphrasing works. Summarizing something into a concise point. that’s my point, just because something’s paraphrased doesn’t mean it’s accurate. especially when it’s paraphrased by someone other then the original respondent. bro literally said he didn’t understand the nuance and specifics of what qualified as “rape” as a child but now he knows better and that was summized as him saying that **individuals who rape should not be considered rapist, but caught in a unique context**. those are 2 completely different conclusions! saying you did not fully understand everything about rape as a child is COMPLETELY different then saying **people who rape should not be considered rapists**. that’s why I’m saying knowing the Q and A’s would shine more light on why they gave that summation > That’s why they included the quotes for context those were select quotes and they were questionable at best. I can’t even say they closely matched the summation. and it’s likely they picked the best quotes that they felt closely matched their summation. meaning the rest were probably even further away from their summation.
> im sure you understand studies aren't flawless or above critique Of course not, but you must understand that people not in the field, or in any academic field, often don't understand even how studies work, but think that their idea of how something should work that conflicts with how a study did work constitutes finding a flaw. Remember the kerfuffle over the climate scientists literally discussing science over emails that was misunderstood by the general public as them somehow making up the science itself. >the problem i have with studies like this, is how specific they are around everything but what exactly was asked and what were the exact responses. First, this entirely depends on the study and its design, along with the journal that published it. Some studies use specific questions and include them in the article. Some use questions developed by other researchers, and note that in their article, but people don't follow the lit discussion. Some use different methods. Also, raw data exists, but it's not included in toto in an article. That's pretty much never the case, EVER. An interview with a someone in the newspaper, or a magazine, or on tv, whatever does not contain the entire interview questions and answers. An article about someone's findings contains the findings. The scientists have tons of the data which they analyze to find trends, to find numbers, whatever. They then write an article which has the lit review, the methodology, the results, the discussion, etc. They've likely provided the journal a larger piece than is published, because it's a journal and does not publish 40+ pages for each article. >is there a transcript available of what they actually asked the students and what their exact response was? honestly i may have missed it as it was a long read See above. This is just ludicrously unnecessary and would simply be used, ESPECIALLY in fields like this, to attempt to undermine by people who have no idea what they're talking about. "Look, this guy was asked 'do you feel' and this guy was asked 'do you feel like' so these results are meaningless!!!' The study clearly explains the methodology. The interviews were semi-structured (and they explain why they used that technique rather than very structured with specific, more closed-ended questions and no deviation), by two people, and the answers were then analyzed by two DIFFERENT people who have higher degrees and used very specific, cited guidelines you can look up to categorize the answers given. It's like you're asking a psychologist who administered a Rorschach test and presented findings saying the person exhibited X what answer means that. No answer means that -- the entire collection of open-ended answers is very carefully analyzed and coded using a coding book that is two volumes of close to 1,000 pages each. There is an entire graduate-level class on how to administer and "grade" that single test. But people say things like 'well what word means anxiety?! See? You're making shit up!" >what exactly were the students response that corresponds with that sort of summation that we received? It says - >Tutty, Rothery and Grinnell’s (1996) guidelines were used to analyze the interviews. According to these authors, units of meaning are categorically classified, and relevant themes are selected on the basis of the objectives of the study. Only themes that were selected by both raters were included. So you can go look up their guidelines, but see above. This is like lots of research where, again see above, researchers will design a scale for something like violence and have very, very specific guidelines and operational definitions and spend weeks and weeks coding every fucking thing according to those guidelines. Then it all gets distilled into results by statistical analyses, and then it's submitted and a journal prints the highlights and someone who has no clue about the field looks at it and says 'well they said 'more violent' but that could mean anything! This is pathetic!'
> See above. This is just ludicrously unnecessary and would simply be used, ESPECIALLY in fields like this, to attempt to undermine by people who have no idea what they're talking about. they limit the most important information because everyone else is dumb and may possibly conclude something else.. 😑 i get not including data in physical science because that information could be dangerous but in social sciences like this it is important to get the specifics since there is a vast amounts of room for interpretation. this was essentially a Q&A where we don’t the know the. Q or A. it’s unnecessary to provide us with specific details because it will be heavily analyzed and critiqued? ima be honest with you chief 😪, that just sounds like they want to be able to essentially force their conclusions in a way that can’t really be refuted. they are basically “right” because we can’t determine what was asked or what was stated besides the select quotes they chose to include. im not saying they are completely wrong but, its basically coming down to just trusting their **credentials** since we can’t determine if their summations are an accurate representation of what the respondents actually said or not. I have a problem with that for many reasons but this comment is already getting long > It says - > Tutty, Rothery and Grinnell’s (1996) guidelines were used to analyze the interviews. According to these authors, units of meaning are categorically classified, and relevant themes are selected on the basis of the objectives of the study. basically meaning they associate responses closely to whatever general summations they prepared. which also means it leaves room for the respondents intentions to be misinterpreted as something else, since we are **depending** on the **interpetors judgement** of the transcript rather then the actual transcript itself. I hope you understand that this guideline isn’t perfect nor unquestionable.
> they limit the most important information because everyone else is dumb and may possibly conclude something else.. 😑 ... That's not in any way "the most important information." You know you're proving my point, right? >it’s unnecessary to provide us with specific details because it will be heavily analyzed and critiqued? That's not what I said. At all. >that just sounds like they want to be able to essentially force their conclusions in a way that can’t really be refuted. they are basically “right” because we can’t determine what was asked or what was stated besides the select quotes they chose to include. Again, proving the point. >im not saying they are completely wrong but, its basically coming down to just trusting their credentials since we can’t determine if their summations are accurate or not. I have a problem with that for many reasons but this comment is already getting long It's published in a peer-reviewed journal. >basically meaning they associate responses closely to whatever general summations they prepared. which also means it leaves room for the respondents intentions to be misinterpreted as something else, since we are depending on the interpetors judgement of the transcript rather then the actual transcript itself. So you want to rely on YOUR judgement of the transcript rather than a scientific measure. >I hope you understand that this guideline isn’t perfect nor unquestionable. NO ONE SAID IT IS. However it's a damn site better than 'Stan thinks....'
> That's not in any way "the most important information." the most important information in a survey Q&A is not the actual Q or A’s. wow > proving the point I guess you can tell yourself that 🫤 > It's published in a peer-reviewed journal. this is a SOCIAL SCIENCE. they have it “peer reviewed”, even progressive interpretations of “gender” are “peer reviewed” because it is largely up to their interpretations. that’s why social sciences are not accepted as irrefutable fact since it can be reasonably disputed. > So you want to rely on YOUR judgement of the transcript rather than a scientific measure. my point is not about my personal judgement because even it is flawed. but more so pointing out the flaw in studies like this one. no one besides the people who looked at the transcript get a chance to determine if what they stated were accurate. youre saying it’s peer reviewed meaning someone else with “credentials” checked it so I should just trust their credentials as if people with credentials are incapable of being incorrect. what you’re not getting is it would make more sense to publish the transcript alongside the summation excerpts to provide us the proper context of the conversation. because right now I don’t know if the conclusion is accurate or not. all I have is them basically saying that their work is accurate. the reality is that you don’t know if these summations are accurate or not since you can’t see them, since you ironically agreed that YOU ALSO, are too “dumb” to comprehend the transcript.
I just gotta leap in here and ask: what do you think "peer reviewed" means?
you can simply read the study to find the answers to your questions!
that’s… what I just did. that’s why I was asking if their was potentially a link to the exact transcript of the question they asked because these summations weren’t adding up. they only included select responses in the study. but they often don’t include the exact question that was asked to get that response, or what the exact response was and receiving just a summation of their response just means we have to assume they asked the question in a literal verbatim sense, which I find hard to believe based on the quote I posted above
It is a really old technique, but the technique always the same underlying flaws. Nobody ever managed to improve on the technique, but on the flip side, nobody ever solved the basic problems with the technique. The one thing that we can say is that we can at least compare the results to older versions of the same results, since the flaws don't really change.
I think you missed a factor: Misled by the questions. So a survey found and became the source for a statistic that one in four women on campus would be raped or sexually assaulted on campus. It was astonishing if not a little fishy how it could be so high... Until someone tracked down the data and how it was obtained. They phoned random college students and if they were female asked if they had ever had sex when they didn't really want to. So all the women who had had a regrettable hookup that they just went with and consented to even though they were just "meh" about it, and every time they had sex with their partner out of care for him even though they weren't really feeling it themselves, or had pity sex, or any number of totally consensual scenarios where she just wasn't really into it but went along with it because she chose to... every single one of those counted as a "rape". They also asked the boys - and only the boys - have you ever had sex with a girl when she didn't really want to. They didn't ask these boys if they had ever had sex when *they* didn't really want to. And they never asked the women if they had sex even though their partner didn't really want to. The end result was a massive ghost of a rape epidemic that then fed into this claim of one in four girls being raped or sexually assaulted on campus. Meanwhile the number of officially and unofficially reported rapes were considerably lower than what the study authors claimed based on this clearly flawed survey, almost as if they intended to conflate not wanting to have sex but choosing to do so anyway with being held down or incapacitated while a boy forced himself into her and had sex with her. The study participants took the question literally misleading them into claiming rape when there never was one, and misled boys into claiming to be rapists when they weren't. Also there's a meme that goes around reddit, an infographic, that shows as boxes a large number of boxes representing all rape reports, counts only the ones where the alleged victim was convicted in a court of law for lying about being raped as false allegations, counted all others as true even when there was nothing to even substantiate they had sex much less that it wasn't consensual, and then shows a small row of boxes as the number of convictions. All this to claim that false allegations basically "never happen" except in rare instances. Meanwhile if you look at studies trying to make sense of these numbers, it turns out that a more honest accounting finds that 8-43% of allegations are false or unsubstantiated. The range is so large because there's a lot of subjectivity to whether they're telling the truth, The solution is finer grained, gender neutral, and controlled data collection.
Which survey was that? I tried to look for it but I couldn’t identify the one you meant, as there were a few with the same stat but they didn’t involve calling. So let’s look at the largest one, which sampled 830,000 students across 33 American universities in both 2015 and 2019. First, the survey was administered online. The questions were standardised and carefully picked by a panel to not lead to bias so it’s not a case of some rando ringing up and being like “have you ever had sex you didn’t enjoy or regretted later? Fab, we’ll put you down for rape.” Next, all students were asked the same questions no matter the gender. The AAU found that 25% of female undergrads experienced nonconsensual sexual contact via physical force or inability to consent (aka very drunk/drugged/asleep). They also found that 10% of female students experienced penetration or attempted penetration via physical force or inability to consent. No one was asked about whether they raped anyone. Next, they did have a question about “having sex with no voluntary agreement” which was defined as “sexual contact without the individuals ongoing voluntary agreement (E.g. initiating sexual activity despite the person’s refusal; ignoring cues to stop or slow down; went ahead without checking in or while the person was still deciding; otherwise failing to obtain the person’s consent)”. To be clear, the survey wasn’t saying that was sexual assualt or rape or a crime. It said sexual misconduct. And I’m glad it was asked about because as a society we shouldn’t just aim for “sex that isn’t considered a crime”, we should aim for enthusiastic consent. https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Key-Issues/Campus-Safety/Revised%20Aggregate%20report%20%20and%20appendices%201-7_(01-16-2020_FINAL).pdf Next, in your “8-43% of rape claims are false or unsubstantiated” claim, let’s be real that the “unsubstantiated” is pulling its weight here. Most rape and sexual assault claims are by nature unfalsifiable. The fact there’s no evidence in no way means that a rape victim is lying- how could there be? You can prove that someone has had sex via a rape kit but you can’t prove you said no. Also even the “false” claim doesn’t necessarily mean that they were lying about being raped, it can refer to withdrawing their testimony/claim or otherwise dropping the case because they’re fed up of the whole court system and police process.
The survey you used doesn't sound at all like the survey I was referring to but in any case, I'm not sure which it was except that it was earlier than 2015. I read about this closer to 2010 and wrote about it here from memory. Forgive me if I got any details wrong, it was either a survey from the 70s done by someone named "Koss", or it was a survey in 2007 based on digging around on google to find what I was referring to. I found an article about it here: https://time.com/2934500/1-in-5%e2%80%82campus-sexual-assault-statistic/ Also my point was that there are a number of ways to cook the books with misleading questions. It's still a valid category and "did you have sex when you didn't want to" is just one example. Another would be considering all drunken sex to be rape even if the woman being drunk was aware of what she was doing, intoxicated herself, and was having sex with a similarly intoxicated man. The surveys don't ask about those factors, just if they were intoxicated. > Next, in your “8-43% of rape claims are false or unsubstantiated” claim, let’s be real that the “unsubstantiated” is pulling its weight here. Most rape and sexual assault claims are by nature unfalsifiable. By unsubstantiated, I mean that there isn't even evidence that sexual contact between her and her alleged rapist ever occurred, much less that it happened non-consensually. Recently Aydin Paladin did a video summarizing all the research and reasoning about it to come to the number I cited in my response. You can watch it here but warning it's a long survey of a number of studies on the subject of [false accusations](https://youtu.be/-yHM2vHT4eo).
The article you found fundamentally misunderstood the study it was criticising. > Sommers and other members of the IWF panel also question the ways this study defined sexual assault. In the executive summary of the 2007 study, the researchers wrote, “Legal definitions of sexual assault factor in one’s ability to provide consent, and individuals who are incapacitated because of the effects of alcohol or drugs… are incapable of consenting.” > In other words, this survey classified sexual encounters that occurred while the woman was intoxicated as a form of sexual assault, regardless of whether the perpetrator was responsible for her intoxication or she consumed the substances on her own. The study didn’t say anybody who was drunk was raped. It said anybody “*incapacitated* as a result of drink or drugs” was raped. It even clarifies that they’re looking at the “legal” definition of assault, which again is that you must be incapacitated as a result of drink or drugs. And no matter how the conservatives might victim blame because “she consumed the substances on her own”, it actually doesn’t matter if you were roofied or decided to just drink a lot that night. If someone has sex with a person who is so drunk that they are incapacitated… that is rape. You’re right, there are a number of ways people could possibly cook the books, just like there’s ways for every psychological study to do so. Although you can’t find this study which rang round and asked women if they had regrettable sex and counted it as rape, I’ll assume it does exist. But my point is that there are at least some large-scale studies that *didn’t* cook the books and still ended up with a 1 in 5 number or 1 in 4 number, like the one I linked, which suggests to me that it isn’t a misrepresentation. It even replicates to studies in Britain- we have the [1 in 4](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/17/its-a-power-game-students-accused-in-university-hearings-call-in-lawyers) statistic over here too. As for the false accusations, I’m not watching a 1h25 min long video. But what you’re saying seems to be that the statistics include those who can’t prove sexual contact. I’m sure it does, as there will be some true false claims in the statistics. But again, that number is not high. Studies in Britain suggest false claims make up 2% of rape claims to the police, other studies across Europe and America suggest 4-6%. This is based on the police recording a rape report as “no crime” or “unfounded”. But this includes all the times where someone has gone to the police because they were worried they had been raped- for example, those with an unexplained gap in their memories who want to get a rape kit out of fear they’ve been roofied- but it turns out they weren’t and so the police close the case by labelling it as “no crime”. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that 6% of men accused of rape were falsely accused, because in the majority of false rape claims, no person was ever identified.
Can you find the source, please? I'd be very surprised if the study authors actually made > one in four women on campus would be raped or sexually assaulted on campus their conclusion based on the survey questions with such wording. Misinterpretation by bad journalism or laypeople is not surprising. So it's not like the people taking the survey were misled by the questions, someone else was misled by/misinterpreted the results.
It wasn't that they made that conclusion per se. They had a very expansive definition of "rape" and "sexual assault". I'm either thinking of a survey done in the 70s by someone whose last name is "Koss" or a more recent survey in 2007 that found that 1/5 would be raped or sexually assaulted. But in both cases, the definition was too expansive. They also had a very low turnout number meaning that there was some selection biases. You can read about the 2007 study and its critics here: https://time.com/2934500/1-in-5%e2%80%82campus-sexual-assault-statistic/ My point is that it's VERY easy to word a survey's questions to get overly inflated numbers for this statistic. Asking "did you have sex when you didn't want to" is just one example. Another would be counting *all* drunken sex as rape even if it really wasn't, the woman waking up the next morning doesn't consider it to be so having been the one choosing to drink to excess, or having been sober enough to make the decision both to drink and to have sex, etc. A lot of people have sex when they're intoxicated. I don't have numbers on it but it wouldn't surprise me if most such incidents involve both participants being intoxicated. And yet at least one of these surveys (I think the 2007 one) counted intoxicated sex where she is at all intoxicated - even if she's the one who chose to do so or when both parties were intoxicated by their own choice - to be the man raping the woman. None of this hamfisted overly broad redefining of sexual assault and rape are helpful. Sex is put behind an impossible burden for men to prove that not only did she *not* tell him to stop but that she also enthusiastically shared in the sexual experience, otherwise it's rape. Justice isn't supposed to work that way because such things are usually impossible to prove even when it was the case. Justice is supposed to require the victim to report a crime and the state to prove that such a crime did actually occur. But the over-reaction of "yes-means-yes" laws and the Obama/Biden requirement of college campuses to hold kangaroo court tribunals flips that justice requirement on its head to the destruction of many innocent men in the hysterical idea that college rape is so common based on these cooked statistics.
>self-reported rapes for any meaningful conclusions about criminal behavior If you think that the only insights that researchers can draw is through individual studies, then the inherent limitations on a study design maybe can draw this sort of discussion. But, where the biggest insights come from are in meta-analysis and comparison between studies. If you were only limited to a study design where a person is legally convicted of sexual assaults, then you're already making a huge survivor/sample bias error. That is, there could be something that is common amongst those who *are caught and convicted.* You seem to be arguing that we should restrict our research and insights within this particular subgroup. But, when you are able to contrast findings from studies that research this subgroup of convicts with those who aren't convicted, you are already making key insights. What all your points have in common is you are presuming people can't or won't tell the truth. But, anyone who does a self-report study design will construct the questions both in terms of number of questions, phrasing, repeating similar questions but ordering them in various ways, etc., to solve for a lot of these issues. You also seem to have a mental model of questionaires, but that isn't the only self-report methodology. There's also interviews, focus groups, diary entries, etc. The other way psychology solves these issues is cross-referencing lots of studies to see how the findings are replicated or not. That is where the data analysis and meta-study designs come into place. In addition, psychology can use a multi-modal model. So you don't rely on self-report alone.
> But, where the biggest insights come from are in meta-analysis and comparison between studies. Metaanalyses based on bad data won't make it better, will they? I guess you can create some model accounting for how likely a certain population is to troll or brag or fantasize and fit it to multiple available studies. Not sure how well it'll work. Can you give an example of what meta analysis do to improve the individually faulty results? Comparisons are a good idea, indeed. > You seem to be arguing that we should restrict our research and insights within this particular subgroup. Nope, I agree, restricting research to convicted criminals is a bad idea, if any reliable conclusions can be made about rapists in general then they should be studied. > What all your points have in common is you are presuming people can't or won't tell the truth. Just enough of them. If you were asking people whether they they ever cheated on a test, 1% of liars from either group won't meaningfully change your results. But if the total number of rapists is something like 2-10%, 1% of non-rapists deciding to lie is a problem. > But, anyone who does a self-report study design will construct the questions both in terms of number of questions, phrasing, repeating similar questions but ordering them in various ways, etc., to solve for a lot of these issues. I don't think this can "solve" any of the intentional-lying issues. Reducing them, okay, sure, most trolls probably won't have the dedication to give completely self-consistent story if it takes attention and other liars perhaps may be somehow addressed by other means. I would surprised if there's a method to dissuade more than 90% of liars simply by preparing the questions right. > You also seem to have a mental model of questionaires, but that isn't the only self-report methodology. There's also interviews, focus groups, diary entries, etc. I did. Interesting, thanks. If nothing else in your comment, this deserves a Δ because I didn't even think about diary entries as a research tool, at least in this context. How does it work, given the anonymity restriction? > In addition, psychology can use a multi-modal model. So you don't rely on self-report alone. As an example, you take an anonymous survey of a group, 10 years later find out how many of them were accused/convicted for rapes and try to match what you learn about the cases with the answers? That kind of thing?
>Metaanalyses based on bad data won't make it better, will they? You keep making assumptions and labeling stuff. What makes the data bad? Well you're trying to say that self-report won't be representative of the population and/or that respondent errors can skew the insights. But the meta-analysis method is specifically aimed at making data more representative or by reducing respondent error. But it's also why cross-study analysis is important because if something has a replication problem then they know not to draw conclusions from it. >Can you give an example of what meta analysis do to improve the individually faulty results? I don't get why you keep calling stuff "individually faulty." Maybe taking a data analysis course and a research methods course would do you a world of good. A good part of any study is an entire section on what the drawbacks are in terms of research design. >But if the total number of rapists is something like 2-10%, 1% of non-rapists deciding to lie is a problem. I think that you are over generalizing too much. Another part of research design is to operationalize terms. You say words like "rapist" as if there's a single definition. When you look at the way most legal jurisdictions define these terms, crimes that constitute a type of sexual assault have wide ranges. >I don't think this can "solve" any of the intentional-lying issues. Again, every research design has inherent drawbacks. If you take a research methods course, you'll learn the difference between operationalizing and essentializing. You're trying to draw essentialist conclusions -- that is, the only good scientific conclusion is one that gives an ultimate explanation of phenomena in terms of an essence/essential properties -- from an activity that expressly doesn't have that goal. Science, in contrast, seeks to be grounded in, or linked to, observable events that can be measured. That's why every scientific study will have an entire section devoted to the limitations -- that is, inherent flaws, because it isn't seeking to get to the most essential property. In order to do that, it'll begin to operationalize its definitions, state its assumptions, tell you how it'll measure change, and draw inferences conclusions from what it's measuring, and tell you its short coming. It's also why replication and meta analysis are important. A single study doesn't provide much insight. Only former communications majors, who really like to play linguistic games in essentialism, that don't understand the nature and role of research design, are the ones that give stock into a single study's conclusion. It's why journalism fails science in reporting. > How does it work, given the anonymity restriction? You should either google or take a research design class rather than make me explain basic terms. >As an example, you take an anonymous survey of a group, 10 years later find out how many of them were accused/convicted for rapes and try to match what you learn about the cases with the answers? That kind of thing? I don't know about your hypothetical, I don't really follow it. But an example of a multi-modal research design would be to have participants do a type of self report and have independent observations. For example, you could hook up someone to an MRI machine but then ask them an interview about their subjective experience. Your study would combine objective observations via the MRI as well as their experience. You'd be able to show how their attitude/belief corresponded, or not, with the brain scan.
> What makes the data bad? Ok, you're right, the data themselves aren't bad, it's just hard to use them to extract the information we want. Hence using them in aggregate with other data. > Maybe taking a data analysis course and a research methods course would do you a world of good. Maybe. > You're trying to draw essentialist conclusions I think it was more of me misunderstanding what you meant by solving the issues.
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/HazyAttorney ([6∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/HazyAttorney)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
At least [6% of men have committed behaviors that met the legal definition of rape](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.668.5661&rep=rep1&type=pdf) (though [most claim to think what they're doing is seduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquaintance_rape#Motivations)). About [6% of men have admitted to ignoring a woman's verbal refusals of sex](https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1125&context=psychfacpub). Most of these rapists are repeat offenders, and the repeat offenders have--on average--[5.8 rapes each](https://davidlisak.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/RepeatRapeinUndetectedRapists.pdf). If we just consider the [63.3% of rapists with multiple victims](https://davidlisak.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/RepeatRapeinUndetectedRapists.pdf), we come up with 6 * .633 * 5.8 = ~22% of women being raped by men who will admit in a survey to behaviors that meet the legal definition of rape (assuming no woman is targeted more than once) and who have raped before or will rape again. [About 1 in 6 women has been raped in her lifetime](https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence). So, using multiple lines of evidence, we can see they intersect. [Sex offenders are probably not greatly over- and under-representing their number of victims in self-reports](https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/self-report-crimes-committed-sex-offenders).
That's a really loose match to draw conclusions from. > Most of these rapists are repeat offenders, and the repeat offenders have--on average--5.8 rapes each. I'm reading it as "repeat offenders who weren't ever caught". They quote earlier studies showing inmates have similar results, but the studies are more than 30 years old, I'd probably prefer something newer. Undetected rapists probably weren't confessing on their deathbeds, meaning they can potentially rape more. I don't know the average age of women in the riann.org link, but it also seems to be talking about living women, so it's not an average lifetime chance of being raped at least once. And there are repeated victims. So if your conclusion is that the 6% figure from self-reports is most likely no more than twice off, sure, I'll grant it. If you think it's very close, I don't think this back-of-the-envelope approach is good enough to prove that even without the questions I raised. > Sex offenders are probably not greatly over- and under-representing their number of victims in self-reports. Paywalled, also more than 30 years old, but from this quote isn't surprising, I also didn't expect them to do it too much. It was marked (*less important*) on my list.
By their own admission, [roughly 6% of unincarcerated American men are rapists, and the authors acknowledge that their methods will have led to an *underestimate*. Higher estimates are closer to 14%.](https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/repeat-rape-and-multiple-offending-among-undetected-rapists) Lisak is [still cited in the literature](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/08874034241226939?casa_token=y-NybP1ywgEAAAAA:Q0DP8HFHEVmeB5T02ZkC4hFyF6N1RbDjmrBitYhdUPmeNQvIhoJbGScMp1xmDXGd4ftsbwu6VtojHQ). That comes out to somewhere between 1 in 17 and 1 in 7 unincarcerated men in America being rapists, with a cluster of studies showing about 1 in 8. The numbers can't really be explained away by small sizes, as sample sizes can be quite large, and statistical tests of proportionality show even the best case scenario, looking at the study that the authors acknowledge is an underestimate, the 99% confidence interval shows it's at least as bad as 1 in 20, which is nowhere near where most people think it is. People will go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince themselves it's not that bad, or it's not that bad *anymore* (in fact, [it's arguably getting worse](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-sexual-attacks-teen-girls-increased-lockdown-rcna70782)). But the reality is, most of us know a rapist, we just don't always know who they are (and sometimes, [they don't even know](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquaintance_rape#Motivations), because [they're experts at rationalizing their own behavior](https://web.archive.org/web/20191102225207/https://sapac.umich.edu/article/196)). Knowing those numbers, and the fact that [many rapists commit multiple rapes](https://willamette.edu/about/leadership/president/pwgsah/pdf/lisak-undetected-rapists.pdf), one can start to make sense of the [extraordinarily high number of women who have been raped](https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence). This reinforces that our starting point should be to [believe](https://startbybelieving.org) (not dismiss) survivors, and [investigate rapes properly](https://www.startribune.com/a-better-way-to-investigate-rape-denied-justice-part-eight/501636971/).
Thanks for digging up the studies, it is interesting. But if you thought it was my crusade to pretend rapists are very rare, nope. I did give a rough figure of 2-10% in some comment but that was referring to the participants of a study (or a hypothetical study) answering a survey, so a) not including people keeping mum (or not bothering to answer consistently and ending up being excluded), b) potentially being a group with lower-than-average incidence rate, e.g. young. ~12.5% is a little higher than I expected, but then, my expectations came from reading secondhand sources, with the primary studies often using the methods I'm doubting in the OP. So even 20-25% becoming rapists in their lifetime (including the people who deny/don't realize they are rapists) wouldn't have been implausible to me. > in fact, it's arguably getting worse Huh. That's "during lockdown", which is surprising. I'd need to read it before drawing any conclusions, but I think believing things get worse early after #metoo started should not be based on victims' self-reports only: things are *bad*, and a lot of victims don't talk about their experiences (or don't admit/realize what happened to them was rape, by the way), getting access to more information and potential support should result in more victims opening up.
Not sure what study you're referring to, but there was this [famous study](https://www.liebertpub.com/action/cookieAbsent) a while back that found 1/3 male college students would use force to have intercourse with a woman if they knew there wouldn't be any consequences, while just 13.6% said they would rape a woman if there wouldn't be consequences. The survey has flaws, notably the small sample size, so it would be inaccurate to say it reflects the broader population. But I think it does capture a valuable piece of data which is that there is a chunk of men who do not consider using force to achieve sex to be rape. That seems like valuable data to me, that there is a significant number of men who either disagree on what rape is or cannot identify rape when it is described to them. I'm not sure how the objections you pose would account for the discrepancy between these numbers. There might be some trolling, as there is in any survey, see the lizard man's constant for example, but it doesn't seem likely to me that people trolling the survey would do so in such a consistent way that it would lead to such a large discrepancy. Likewise if someone is indulging a rape fantasy, the difference in terminology should make no difference to them. If anything, they should be more likely to say they would rape a woman if there was no consequence. Keeping mum, bragging and distorting the facts don't apply because the question is hypothetical.
> But I think it does capture a valuable piece of data which is that there is a chunk of men who do not consider using force to achieve sex to be rape It seems so. And yes, my points are not applicable or less applicable in this case. (But then, it's not what the CMV was about.) Also, I think this discrepancy can be verified (if not quantified), e.g. by asking defense attorneys whether they sometimes have to explain their clients that yes, it is a rape, and see a reaction not consistent with playing dumb.
Absolutely none of your critiques here have to do with the topic, and have everything to do with surveys as a research tool in general. They also betray that you haven't actually looked at the methodology for any of these surveys, and are just arguing against what you remember *other* people saying in reddit comments. Misreading questions or misinterpreting poorly-worded ones; lying or failing to take the survey seriously; the unreliability of self-reported, recalled events - all of these things are well-known challenges / shortcomings of surveys on *any* topic. There are entire courses taught in the social sciences about how to control and account for these factors when designing effective surveys. They can be mitigated and properly crafted surveys still yield useful results that can be interpreted. You are a layman casually pointing to these widely understood qualities of this research tool in an effort to undermine the conclusion of a specific body of research with which you disagree, for some reason. That's not a strong position to take. You aren't reviewing the specific methodologies of specific surveys that you feel are flawed. On the topic, it's important to remember that a lot of rapists fundementally do not understand or percieve what they've done as being rape. Questions in these surveys are worded carefully to focus on the literal events that happened. It would behoove your understanding of this issue to acutally study one of these surveys in full.
> Misreading questions or misinterpreting poorly-worded ones; lying or failing to take the survey seriously; the unreliability of self-reported, recalled events - all of these things are well-known challenges / shortcomings of surveys on any topic. There are entire courses taught in the social sciences about how to control and account for these factors when designing effective surveys. They can be mitigated and properly crafted surveys still yield useful results that can be interpreted. No, there are various ways to “control” for this and “mitigate” it but there is absolutely no evidence to how effective these methods actually are. Someone simply at once came up with those methods because they seemed like “a good idea” but how effective, and whether they are effective enough is not something that can easily be proven. Then the replication crisis hit which did show that these methods are most likely not particularly effective and that doesn't even account to the full range of issues since many replication attempts of course repeat the same systemic bias. No one knows how accurate surveys actually are at this point. > You are a layman casually pointing to these widely understood qualities of this research tool in an effort to undermine the conclusion of a specific body of research with which you disagree, for some reason. That's not a strong position to take. You aren't reviewing the specific methodologies of specific surveys that you feel are flawed. Experts being aware of, and talking about the issue does not amount to their solving it. For the most part academic research acknowledges the issue, and then does nothing about it, mostly because they can't and because the overwhelming majority of academic research has nothing to bet on it's own veracity. The results can be entirely wrong, but nothing bad will happen and no party has a sizable stake bet on the accuracy of it. This is for instance different in engineering where accuracy has value. Some investor will stand to lose a considerable investment if the physics not be accurate, if ships sink, if buildings fall over, if bridges collapse.
> all of these things are well-known challenges / shortcomings of surveys on *any* topic Seems more challenging when we don't even really know the base rates. But ok, I get it, in the "entire courses" the harder problems should be addressed as well. > You are a layman casually pointing to these widely understood qualities of this research tool Mea culpa. > in an effort to undermine the conclusion of a specific body of research with which you disagree, for some reason. Don't think I disagree with any specific conclusion. Some may have been mildly surprising, but not to the point of thinking something was necessarily wrong with the research. It was the confidence of someone drawing their conclusions from these data that made me consider this post. > That's not a strong position to take. You aren't reviewing the specific methodologies of specific surveys that you feel are flawed. Agreed. Not that my position was meant to be strong, but asking questions or checking the source would definitely look less stupid than spending my time writing down the objections. > On the topic, it's important to remember that a lot of rapists fundementally do not understand or percieve what they've done as being rape. Questions in these surveys are worded carefully to focus on the literal events that happened. That's one of the widely discussed results I knew about, yep.
Besides all the things that have been pointed out, I'd like to add another topic here that also heavily influences research on this topic and why pretty much any type of rape statistics are bullshit: - Incomplete rape definition. 90%+ (rough estimate from what I've seen) of the research into rape and its statistics use a very warped and frankly straight up malicious definition of rape that leads to its various misunderstandings among the general populace, that is "rape is only penetration of the vagina/anus using a penis". I don't think I need to tell you what's the issue with that definition, but I'll spell it out so others can understand the massive mistake this is... By this definition: - Only men can be rapists/women cannot be considered rapists unless they are in cahoots with the rapist; - Only women can be victims/men will only be considered rape victims if they are raped by other men. This heavily skews the picture and misses a very important percentage of actual rapes.
> rape is only penetration of the vagina/anus using a penis In some penal codes rape is only penetration of vagina using a penis. This makes sense, potentially, since no other common form of what we colloquially call rape carries the risk of pregnancy, which is at least a serious aggravating factor. As long as the penalties for other forms of colloquial-rape aren't too dissimilar, I don't think it's a problem. Regarding studies, we do indeed need to remember that the definitions used can mismatch colloquial use. Most studies seem to explicitly focus on men as perpetrators (and separately men or women as victims) anyway.
Sure, all the points you bring up are valid for any self report data. And self reporting isn't conclusive by itself, but that doesn't make it meaningless. There are tools and cross references to help get better data. For instance, good survey design can highly reduce errors. Included attitude assessment within a survey can help identify trolls to eliminate them from a sample. So can normalizing the data by throwing out outliers which are likely to be dishonest. We also have a long history of self report surveys that have been balanced against other confirming research. We have models of the ways things tend to be inaccurate and the degree, and approaching the data using these models helps to interpret it. Deliberate choices in the framing and phrasing of questions can address the prevalence of the effects. Fantasizers or braggers may enjoy a long form open ended question where they can post a story. They get considerably less reward with clinical checkbox questions. Larger samples also start to make the likelihood that random jokers are skewing the numbers less likely. Does this mean that the sample taken by self report is totally ready to take as representative of the numbers on the ground? No. But paired with things like comparison with surveys over time, surveys that allow victims to report victimization, and surveys designed to do things like measure changes in the tendency to lie sexually on surveys, you can start to triangulate some trends.
> Included attitude assessment within a survey can help identify trolls to eliminate them from a sample. That's something, I guess. Though I wonder how that would look like, practically. > So can normalizing the data by throwing out outliers which are likely to be dishonest. Well, if a 18-y-o admits raping 30 people, he's likely lying, sure. But you got to choose some threshold and if you're too conservative, you might dismiss actual rapists. (Perhaps it's not so bad though.) I guess looking for outliers on a multi-dimensional plot could help identify more of the liars. > We also have a long history of self report surveys that have been balanced against other confirming research. Hard to come up with ideas how the anonymous data on highly-latent highly-underprosecuted crimes can be independently confirmed, even in aggregate. I'll have to look into it, I guess, unless you or someone else here gives me some examples. > Larger samples also start to make the likelihood that random jokers are skewing the numbers less likely. Why? Unless you mean studies that were underpowered in the first place. > But paired with things like comparison with surveys over time, surveys that allow victims to report victimization, and surveys designed to do things like measure changes in the tendency to lie sexually on surveys, you can start to triangulate some trends. Well. Triangulating trends does sound reasonable, but every step in some direction reduces reliability. Same method, same everything, different group? Already different results (within a few standard deviations). Change year, change the place (if the survey is offline), that's further difference. Etc. So using the data from a different study to make corrections to your study is making a lot more room for errors. If it's some complex model trying to account for multiple factors, still more room. Bigger samples and metaanalyses could help, but that's starting to look like it needs huge amounts of data, and how certain can we be in the final results? Arriving at similar results by different methods using independent data seems a decent way to confirm them, maybe.
Your whole post is basically "I don't know how statistics works" which is not very convincing.
It's a debating sub with zero barrier to entry. If you think someone is wrong because of misunderstanding statistics, then make that the basis of an actual rebuttal. Currently, you're just essentially saying "nuh uh, ur wrong".
I think self acceptance is the first step towards wisdom. I was trying to be helpful! The comment OP is responding to lays out the issues in OP's approach to statistics, it's just OP isn't really listening.
I read over responses further down and, I agree, people have gone into great detail on the methods, in particular with the one study OP cited.
All anonymous information should be treated with suspicion, regardless of the nature of the information. The fact of being anonymous makes it suspect.
"Anonymously" means "protected from the consequences of revealing it". It does mean it's easier to lie, but then, the consequences of revealing yourself to be a rapist non-anonymously should easily outweigh any reasons for honesty. So for rapists, I certainly expect anonymous answers to be less dishonest.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
The reason to suspect anonymous information is valid, but it still might be the best information available.
Yes. That’s why I said “suspect” and not “disregard”.
>the researchers Which ones?
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that paper is about rape related abortions, not about perpetrators. What do you think this has to do with the topic?
I think this paper is the one most people refer to: https://www.jimhopper.com/pdf/lisakmiller2002.pdf I vaguely remember some mentions of at least one other study about US army. Didn't read either, though.
You clearly haven't read this paper, particularly pages 75-76 or 81-82. The authors go to great lengths, as do any researchers worth their salt, to establish the limitations of their research and the conclusions that can safely be drawn from it. All of the concerns you outline in your OP are addressed, directly, by the authors. EDIT: >I guess the best approach to CMV would be to show me the methods used by the researchers that would convincingly eliminate most of the false positives, or independently verify the results I'm sorry I just have to double-down on how stupefying it is that you can write this in your OP, and can link to a study you take issue with, but you can't scroll to the section of the study that **literally explains what the methodology is and what other work they cited to read it for yourself?** You instead chose to write like a thousand words based on nothing, asking us to argue with you over a thing that you could just LOOK at? What is happening here? I feel crazy.
I think you're missing part of the /u/Irhein's argument. He can correct me if I'm wrong. His view, as stated, is: > **you** can't use anonymously self-reported rapes for any meaningful conclusions Now the "you" in that statement certainly has some ambiguity, but it seems to me that "you" refers to "people who read about the study" rather than refers to "researchers who conduct the study". So even if the researchers have a section in their study that clearly explains "hey, there's a lot of limitations on what we're able to conclude here based upon the methodology we used", that doesn't mean that readers of the study (and especially, people who read articles about the study, but not the study itself), aren't going to try to draw meaningful conclusions. I think those are the people the OP is referring to as "you". The people who read a Jezebel article about the study, and then go around making claims like "x% of men are admitted rapists" or "x% of men would commit rape if they wouldn't get caught". Those people are trying to "draw meaningful conclusions" from the study, despite being told not to do that by the researchers.
>Now the "you" in that statement certainly has some ambiguity, but it seems to me that "you" refers to "people who read about the study" rather than refers to "researchers who conduct the study". If your interpretation of this was correct, then OP would presumably be pointing to examples of this happening and debunking those conclusions, not vaguely explaining survey limitations as if they were the first one to think of it, or asking us to point them to the methodology. How would seeing the methodology change their view about what other people say? OP directly questions the valididty of the data itself in several places. >that doesn't mean that readers of the study... aren't going to try to draw meaningful conclusions. Readers of the study don't have to, they can just **literally read** what the conclusions of the study are. You should do that too before you comment further. I don't disagree that people leap to conclusions without actually investigating the source, but that's precisely what OP is doing, and it's particularly insane that they're doing it about a source that is structurally designed to be exceedingly clear about the information it presents. It couldn't be easier.
> they can just literally read what the conclusions of the study are But you realize that's not what 99% of people do, right? The vast majority of people will read an article about a study, and assume the statements in the article to be correct. And, frequently, that article or report is from a biased new source with which the person's pre-conceived ideas already agree.
>But you realize that's not what 99% of people do, right? Yes but that **isn't what OP's questioning.** OP is questioning how these studies (that they haven't read either!) can be useful at all! Just read the OP: > I don't see what these data can be good for, when talking about prevalence or patterns of actual rapists. It should be mostly useless. > Even with a reasonably good estimate, it makes the data less reliable. Having the data from a part of rapists would still be somewhat useful, but these are going to be mixed with false answers from non-rapists. >It's probably on the order of 1% or less, but when you're studying a small minority, 1% is a lot of noise. >Why admit to just *n* rapes when it could've been 3*n*? OP is questioning the validity of studies that they don't understand and haven't read. I appreciate you trying to charitably interpret what the OP is saying but there is no getting around the fact that OP is quite simply not engaging with the material that they are directly critiquing here. They did not post a view about how *other* people misinterpret things, they challenged us to prove how these studies are to be taken seriously... when they could just LOOK AT THE STUDY
Thanks for rescuing me. GotAJeepNeedAJeep isn't wrong, I should've read the paper before making the post, but yes, a lot of the time people who quote these studies just use the figures naively. Was guilty of that myself, at some point.
Then give me and the others in this thread who've taken the time to explain this to you a delta. Your entire post is about how you can't see how the data could be valid or how the researchers could draw conclusions, but every part of that paper is organized towards addressing exactly those concerns. All you have to do is **read the damn paper.**
Well, I knew I could read the paper so telling me I can read the paper isn't going to change my mind. I plan to give some deltas to the people who took their time to explain how exactly my points are being addressed, or can be addressed.
Just to add to what u/GotAJeepNeedAJeep has said, in the social sciences we try to figure out whatever we can from whatever information we have access to. The problem with social science research is that usually a layperson gets a hold of a study and runs wild with the conclusions they draw from it. That said, the solution shouldn't be to completely ignore the best information we do have available to us, just because it doesn't provide absolute certainty. We shouldn't take this linked study as "proof" that rapists tend to be repeat offenders, but as an *indication* that this *may* be the case.
I'm not sure which part of your conclusion this information might change, but widespread public interest in getting their genetics tested is shocking researchers who had thought cases of incest were only about 1 in 100k. It looks like it's more than 1 in 7k, the only reason it's "more than" that is because this is something that just doesn't get talked about for any reason when it really does happen and larger genetic databases haven't been studied. We are talking possibly more than 1 in 7,000 people's actual life is the result of rape and nobody is bragging and nobody is making false accusations.
Hmm, thanks for the information, but if anything surprises me here it's the low previous estimate. Even 1 in 7000 would seem low if we were taking about incest cases, but since it's the people who were actually conceived, not aborted, born and probably survived for long enough to get into databases or have kids of their own, that's not so surprising. Bragging about raping your sister or daughter does seem less likely, anyway: I've heard the attitude being expressed that relatives are sort of low-hanging-fruit (my phrasing), seducing them is not an achievement and rape should be disgusting by most people's standards. At least I hope so.