Perspectives on Future Research on Sexual Assault Disclosure and Social Support

Objective: The purpose of this perspective piece is to provide insights on research on sexual assault (SA) disclosure and social support from my past experience researching this area. Method: I discuss my past work starting with disclosure of rape and SA to understand its impact on SA survivors' symptomatology, including the Social Reactions Questionnaire (Relyea & Ullman, 2015b; Ullman, 2000; Ullman et al., 2017). The Social Reactions Questionnaire was developed to assess social reactions to SA disclosures given limited prior research on general support perceptions and the need for more comprehensive measures and research on this construct. Results: I discuss how work in this area showed how negative responses to victims' disclosures negatively affect postassault psychological symptoms and survivors' recovery. I then discuss the need to further examine both the disclosure process, specific aspects of disclosure itself, and interpersonal support exchanges that impact survivors' recovery and relationships in various subpopulations and social-ecological contexts. Conclusions: I suggest that future basic research on these processes is needed particularly in diverse populations of survivors in terms of race/ethnicity, culture, sexual and gender identities, disability, and other characteristics in various social-ecological contexts. Such information is needed to further develop and refine support network interventions and education (Edwards et al., 2022) aimed at reducing negative social reactions and increasing positive social reactions to all survivors. Such interventions are needed to help ameliorate the rape-supportive climate in society.