Who Understands Consent? A Latent Profile Analysis of College Students' Attitudes Toward Consent.

Sexual assault occurs at high rates on college campuses today. This problem persists despite the many educational programs that seek to educate college students about sexual assault and consent. The current study used latent profile analysis on a survey of 717 college students at a Midwestern university to determine if different people have varying behavioral intentions about consent during four different sexual situations. Results show that there are four distinct profiles of intentions related to consent: the respecting explicit, affirmative, and ongoing consent profile (76.55% of the sample); only respecting explicit consent profile (9.89%); unsure about nonexplicit consent profile (9.04%); and the does-not-ask for verbal consent in relationships profile (4.55%). Regression analysis also revealed that males were more likely to be classified in the only respecting explicit consent profile compared with the three other profiles, but there were no significant differences among the other profiles.