Bystander Responses to Intimate Partner Violence in Heterosexual and Same-Sex Relationships: The Role of Perpetrator Gender and Relationship Sexual Orientation

Although prior research has identified factors associated with bystander willingness to intervene in intimate partner violence (IPV), whether responses differ across heterosexual and same-sex relationships remains underexplored. Using a vignette design with 182 college students, this study examined whether perpetrator gender and relationship sexual orientation influenced awareness of violence, post-situation informal intervention, and willingness to report the incident to police. A significant perpetrator gender × relationship sexual orientation interaction emerged for police reporting. The interaction showed a crossover pattern: descriptively, reporting willingness was greater for male than female perpetrators in heterosexual vignettes, whereas the pattern reversed in same-sex vignettes. However, neither within-context perpetrator-gender comparison reached statistical significance in follow-up simple-effects analyses, indicating that the interaction should be interpreted cautiously.