Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Gender-Based Violence in Mexico

• In Event: Perspectives on Gender and Identity

Abstract

Over 70% of women and girls in Mexico have experienced violence, with Mexico City holding the highest rates in the country. Prominent instances of femicide and intimate partner violence have led to mass protests, and demonstrate the urgency of combatting machista culture that enables gender-based violence (GBV). Social psychologists point out that perceived acceptability of violence amongst peers can be even more important than one's own attitudes in predicting violent behaviors. We design an intervention that incorporates this insight and targets individuals at a formative age to understand how modifying perceived community norms can reduce gender-based violence. Based in urban Mexico City, we conduct a field experiment among teenaged students (n=875) that tests the influence of social referents and cognitive behavioral therapy on the incidence of gender-based violence. We identify optimal conditions for shifting first and second-order beliefs about GBV and trace the role of social networks in transmitting norms and producing attitudinal changes.

Authors

• Sarah F. Thompson, Cornell University

• Beatriz Magaloni, Stanford University

• Madison Dalton, Stanford University

• Kim Alexander Byrial Juárez Jensen, Stanford University