David Lisak
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David Lisak is an American
clinical psychologist Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...
. He received his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
from
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...
, and is a retired Associate Professor of Psychology at the
University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Massa ...
. Lisak's research focuses on "the causes and consequences of interpersonal violence...motives and behaviors of rapists and murderers, the impact of childhood abuse on adult men, and relationship between child abuse and later violence".


Research

Lisak began his research in graduate school at Duke in the 1980s. He had noticed that most of the research on
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...
and
sexual assault Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
consisted of interviews with victims, who reported almost exclusively acquaintance rape rather than stranger rape, and studies on incarcerated rapists, who were almost exclusively stranger rapists. Lisak became interested in studying the rapists who committed the most common form of rape but who did not get caught and go to prison. Lisak performed a meta-analysis of four surveys conducted from 1991 to 1998, surveying 1,882 male Boston college students, resulting in a landmark study of undetected rapists that was published in 2002. The study began with a questionnaire, which Lisak reported following up with interviews of each respondent. The questions included things like "Have you ever had
sexual intercourse Sexual intercourse (or coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction.Sexual intercourse most commonly means penile–vaginal pene ...
with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated
alcohol_ Alcohol_most_commonly_refers_to: *_Alcohol_(chemistry),_an_organic_compound_in_which_a_hydroxyl_group_is_bound_to_a_carbon_atom *_Alcohol_(drug),_an_intoxicant_found_in_alcoholic_drinks Alcohol_may_also_refer_to: _Chemicals *_Ethanol,_one_of_sev_...
_or_Drugs_of_abuse.html" "title="Alcoholic_beverage.html" "title="n Alcoholic beverage">alcohol Alcohol most commonly refers to: * Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom * Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks Alcohol may also refer to: Chemicals * Ethanol, one of sev ...
or Drugs of abuse">drugs A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalati ...
] to resist your sexual advances?" and "Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn't want to because you used physical force [twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.] if they didn't cooperate?" In 2015, Linda M. LeFauve, an Associate Vice President at
Davidson College Davidson College is a private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina. It was established in 1837 by the Concord Presbytery and named after Revolutionary War general William Lee Davidson, who was killed at the nearby Battle of Cowan†...
and contributor to the
American libertarian In the United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty. According to common meanings of conservatism and liberalism in the United States, libertarianism has been described as ''conservative'' on economic iss ...
think tank
Reason Foundation The Reason Foundation is an American libertarian think tank that was founded in 1978. The foundation publishes the magazine ''Reason''. Based in Los Angeles, California, it is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. According to its web site, the f ...
, questioned Lisak about how he conducted follow-up interviews based on responses to an anonymous survey; Lisak refused to comment and hung up the phone. As with other
social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...
interviews and questionnaires about interpersonal violence, Lisak avoided the use of terms such as "rape", "assault", and "abuse", instead describing in detail the behavior in question, without applying labels that the perpetrators might not identify with. Although the situations described are legally rape, Lisak found the men were not reluctant to talk about them, seeing them as sexual conquests to brag about, and did not think of themselves as rapists; according to Lisak, such men are
narcissistic Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...
and "like nothing better" than to talk about their "sexual exploits". Approximately 5% of the study participants reported having committed rape.Pdf.
 Lisak notes that most rapists who are prosecuted are convicted on a single count of rape, and describes as sobering studies that find incarcerated rapists typically have raped multiple people, with findings ranging from an average of seven to an average of 11 victims. His own research found the same was true for undetected rapists, with serial rapists accounting for 90% of all campus rapes with an average of six rapes each.Pdf.
 He found that both undetected and convicted rapists held prejudiced attitudes towards women and a need for dominance. Compared with non-rapists, Lisak found that rapists are measurably more angry at women and more motivated by a desire to dominate and control them, are more impulsive, disinhibited, anti-social and hyper-masculine, and less empathic. Lisak characterized rapists as extremely adept at identifying potential victims and testing their boundaries, and said that they planned their attacks and used sophisticated strategies to isolate and groom victims, used violence instrumentally in order to terrify and coerce, and used psychological weapons against their victims including power, manipulation, control and threats. Lisak also says that rapists target vulnerable victims, such as female freshmen who have less experience with drinking and are more likely to take risks, or people who are already intoxicated; they use alcohol as a weapon, as it makes the victim more vulnerable at the time but also impairs their credibility with the justice system should they choose to report the rape. Lisak has also noted that recent research has contradicted the long-held assumption that rapists specialize in particular types of victims with the reality, he says, being "far murkier". "Multiple studies," he has written, "have now documented that between 33% and 66% of rapists have also sexually attacked children; that up to 82% of child molesters have also sexually attacked adults; and that between 50% and 66% of incest offenders have also sexually attacked children outside their families." Lisak argues that his and similar findings conflict sharply with the widely held view that college rapes are typically perpetrated by "a basically 'decent' young man who, were it not for too much alcohol and too little communication, would never do such a thing", with the evidence actually suggesting that the vast majority of rapes are committed by serial, violent predators. Therefore, he argues, prevention efforts aimed at persuading men not to rape are unlikely to work, and universities should instead focus on helping non-rapists to identify rapists and intervene in high-risk situations to stop them. He also argues that whenever a nonstranger sexual assault is reported, it represents a window of opportunity for law enforcement to comprehensively investigate the alleged offender, rather than "putting blinders on looking solely on the alleged 45-minute interaction between these two people".


Corroboration and criticism

Research on campus rape continues, and Lisak's views are still being examined by researchers. Similar results to Lisak's were found in Stephanie McWhorter's 2009 ''Reports of rape reperpetration by newly enlisted male navy personnel'', a study done on Navy recruits at RTC Great Lakes. In 2015, researcher Kevin Swartout published a study in ''
JAMA Pediatrics ''JAMA Pediatrics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association. It covers all aspects of pediatrics. The journal was established in 1911 as the ''American Journal of Diseases of Children'' and renamed i ...
'' that found a higher number of men committing rape in college than had Lisak's study but that most were not repeat offenders. In response, Lisak, along with Jim Hopper and Allison Tracy, sent a letter to the journal that published Swartout et al.'s paper reporting that Swartout's study used a flawed and deceptive methodology involving an entirely new and dubious definition of "serial rape" that undercounted the number of serial rapists and provided detailed documentation of their findings on PubPeer. Following Swartout's study, LeFauve published multiple articles in the libertarian magazine ''
Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, lang ...
'' that also criticized Lisak's work, finding multiple issues with both Lisak's 2002 study, and with his well-known "Frank" video. LeFauve says that the four studies used by Lisak were not originally about campus sexual assault, and were repurposed by Lisak for such using only a few questions at the very end of the several pages long questionnaire, and that
The most widely quoted figures—that 90 percent of campus rapes are committed by serial offenders and that they average six rapes each—were calculated on a total of 76 non-traditional students who were not living on a college campus, and whose offenses may or may not have happened on or near a college campus, may or may not have been perpetrated on other students, and may have happened at any time in the survey respondents' adult lives.
LeFauve later went further in a second article, detailing how Lisak's "Frank" video that he's often used in presentations to "college campuses, the military, the judiciary, law enforcement, and untold conferences," which is presented as a re-enactment of a single, unedited interview, is in fact a splicing of multiple interviews from Lisak's 1989 Ph. D. thesis with possibly fabricated information included that presents an extremely biased and misleading representation of the typical college rapist. In response to LeFauve's first article, Lisak stated that he stands by his research, indicating that Reason got several points wrong and may have mixed up several of his statements. However, in her article on the validity (or rather, invalidity) of Lisak's "Frank" video and the conclusions he draws about serial rapists, LeFauve retorts that Lisak "misstated what the articles said" in his response to her first article.


Other

Lisak has criticized the justice system's approach to rape: "Somehow all we can do is take the statement from the victim. Take the statement from the alleged perpetrator and then throw up our hands because they are saying conflicting things...That's not how we investigate other crimes." If, Lisak says, police discount the report of a victim who was intoxicated or otherwise vulnerable, they are "giving a free pass to sexual predators". Especially because of the prevalence of repeat offenders, he encourages police departments and prosecutors to investigate the background of people accused of sexual assault, as they do with, for instance, accused drug dealers, and also to investigate post-assault evidence such as PTSD in the victim. Lisak was the founding editor of ''
Psychology of Men and Masculinity ''Psychology of Men & Masculinities'' (originally ''Psychology of Men & Masculinity'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Psychological Association on behalf of Division 51. The journal was established in 2000 and covers ...
'', an
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
journal. , Lisak serves as the vice-chairman and founding board member of 1in6, a non-profit organization with the mission of helping men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthier, happier lives. Himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Lisak was one of three men profiled in the Big Voice Pictures documentary, '' Boys and Men Healing''. He has also been on the faculty of the National Judicial Education Program and American Prosecutors Research Institute, served as a consultant for the U.S. military, universities, and judicial and law enforcement agencies, and appeared as an expert witness.


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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lisak, David University of Massachusetts Boston faculty Living people Duke University alumni Works about rape 20th-century births Year of birth missing (living people) American clinical psychologists