University students' belief in rape myths: a cross-cultural study

[摘要] English: The increasing prevalence of rape in South Africa is a disconcerting phenomenon. Various theories on the causative factors of rape are discussed in the light of the relevant literature. It becomes evident from the existing literature that one's attitudes regarding rape, the rapist and the rape victim are decisive factors in determining one's propensity to engage in sexual aggression. The construct attitude as well as theories concerning attitude development and change are also explored in the literature review. Rape-tolerant beliefs and negative attitudes towards the rape victim are important cognitive factors to take into account when examining rape. These permissive attitudes towards sexual aggression are collectively termed rape myths. Rape myths play a significant role in the recovery process of the rape victim, the probability of convicting the rapist and determining which incidences of sexual aggression will be defined as rape.Relatively few studies on rape myths have been performed in South Africa and there is a substantial lack of cross-cultural studies in this regard. The main objective of this study is to determine the extent to which students at the University of the Free State adhere to rape myths. The influence of gender and race in determining rape myth acceptance was examined.A non-experimental research design was employed, with gender and race as the independent variables and rape myths as the dependent variable. The research participants consisted of 486 students from the University of the Free State. The participants were obtained by randomly selecting three faculties, from which several classes were identified to take part in the study. There were 166 male and 320 female participants, of which 250 are white and 236 are black.A biographical questionnaire was constructed to determine the demographic variables of gender, race, language and age. The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMA) was employed to assess rape myth acceptance. As the IRMA was constructed in English, it was translated into Afrikaans by means of back-translation. The respondents could participate freely in the study and could complete the questionnaires in their language of choice. As the nature of the topic is sensitive, the respondents remained anonymous. The reliability of the IRMA was calculated by means of Cronbach alpha coefficients and satisfactory reliabilities were obtained. A multivariate analysis of variance was performed to determine the extent to which the independent variables (gender, race) influence the dependent variable (rape myth acceptance). One-way analyses of variance were conducted for each of the four combinations of the independent variables to determine their combined effect on rape myth acceptance.The most important research findings are the following:�?Males exhibited consistently greater acceptance of rape myths than females.�?The variable of race did not account for consistent differences in rape myth acceptance.�?The simultaneous effect of gender and race on rape myth acceptance exhibited that black male respondents accepted the most rape myths and black female respondents accepted the least rape myths.One of the limitations to this study is the limited generalisability of the findings as all the participants are university students. Similar studies, with respondents from various sectors of the general public may expand the generalisability of the research findings. Future studies could also explore the influence of age, occupation or contact with sexual aggression on rape myth acceptance.

[发布机构] University of the Free State