Public reactions to rape are often distorted by the acceptance of so-called rape myths. The goal of our research was to examine how rape myth acceptance (RMA) is connected to the evaluation of rape cases among survivors, unimpacted people, and those impacted by rape through a close relation, who can potentially be important allies of survivors in bringing about social change. We tested these connections in three online survey studies. In Study 1 (N = 758) we found that those impacted by rape personally or through a close relation accepted rape myths less. In Study 2, using a nationally representative sample in Hungary (N = 1007), we tested whether RMA predicted uncertain rape cases more strongly than certain (i.e., stereotypical) ones, considering that a stereotypical rape scenario is condemned by most members of society, but not all rape is labeled as such. We found that RMA predicted the evaluation of both rape scenarios, but the prediction was stronger when rape was uncertain. In Study 3 (N = 384), in a pre-registered study we examined how RMA predicted the evaluation of rape cases amongst people with different previous experiences (impacted/unimpacted). We found that unimpacted people accepted rape myths more, blamed the victim more and labeled the case less as rape when the case was uncertain. These findings suggest that rape myth acceptance functions as cognitive schema and that rape impacted people could have a key role not only in the life of survivors but as allies for social change as well.
Unsupportive reactions to rape survivors are not only a global public health problem but a human rights violation. People with personal experience with rape endorse rape myths less than unimpacted people. People with higher rape myth acceptance labeled both uncertain and certain cases less as rape and blamed the victim more, and these people evaluated uncertain rape cases less harshly than certain ones. The different evaluations of rape cases were predicted by rape myth acceptance, which shows that rape myth acceptance is particularly important when a rape case is not stereotypical which is in accordance with previous research.
One in 20 women have experienced rape according to the estimations of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (
Rape myths are descriptive and prescriptive beliefs about rape that serve to deny and justify men’s aggression against women (
Rape myths function as cognitive schemas and therefore influence how people interpret social information (
Furthermore, rape myths provide an explanation and justification to survivors and their environment about why rape happens and why specifically to them. Although accepting rape myths can help regain a sense of control and reassure survivors that rape cannot happen to them again (
Close friends and relatives of survivors of rape could have a key role in helping survivors to process their trauma. However, previous studies compared only survivors and unimpacted people, whereas people may be personally affected by rape not only as survivors but also through the experience of a close relative or friend. As far as we know, no studies have previously investigated rape myth acceptance specifically among people impacted by rape through a close friend or relative. There is some evidence from two studies that college students who knew survivors had a lower level of rape myth acceptance (
Close friends and relatives of rape survivors can offer the most direct social support for survivors and play an important role in interventions aiming to reduce rape and sexual assaults and in social change movements. Based on previous studies they may be more effective in confronting others’ rape myths than survivors, because they do not directly benefit from the change, just like men are sometimes more effective in confronting sexism than women (
Rape myths create a normative environment in which labeling a case not as rape, blaming a victim for it, and excusing the perpetrator is acceptable (
The main purpose of our research was to examine rape myths as cognitive schemas. In Study 1 we examined the differences between people impacted and unimpacted by rape. In Study 2 we were interested in the consequences of rape myth acceptance, that is, whether they are connected to how people evaluate rape cases. In Study 3 we examined these variables together to understand how prior experience with rape influences the connection between rape myth acceptance and the evaluation of rape cases in a pre-registered study. A better understanding of differences between people with and without the experience of rape and the consequences of rape myth acceptance seems crucial because most rape cases are not stereotypical, and rape myth acceptance can be a tool to explain away these experiences and create obstacles to tackle the widespread problem of rape in society.
We conducted the research in Hungary, where no similar research had been conducted before and which can be characterized as a gender unequal social context. We argue that this context can create norms that sanction rape myth acceptance and can therefore affect the degree to which people label cases as rape. As previous research has shown, such labeling can fundamentally affect the overall evaluation of the case and the treatment of perpetrators and survivors (
In Study 1, we hypothesized that rape survivors would endorse rape myths less than unimpacted people (H1) and we hypothesized that those people impacted through a close relative or friend accept rape myths less than unimpacted people (H2).
Participants were recruited in two different ways. We collected data amongst undergraduate students and recruited participants online from a community sample using convenience sampling. The final sample size was
Because of the lack of previous studies to rely on, we did not calculate an adequate sample size in advance, but using G*Power software version 3.1.9.4, a post hoc sensitivity analysis was performed to detect the minimum effect size that could be achieved with 758 participants. The results showed that with a statistical power of 80% and a significance level of α = .05, the minimum effect size to be detected was .11 which we reached in the current study.
We categorized participants into three groups based on their self-report of having personally experienced rape, having a friend/family member/loved one who experienced rape, or not knowing anyone who had been raped. We labeled participants as “rape survivors”; “rape impacted” people who knew a close person (close friend/relative/loved one) who was a survivor of rape, and we labeled participants who had neither experienced rape, nor knew of any survivors as “unimpacted” people. Fifty-five participants reported that they were rape survivors (1.3% of all men and 11.4% of all women participants), 74 participants were impacted by rape by knowing someone close to them who had experienced rape (13.9% of all men and 11.2% of all women), and 496 participants were categorized as unimpacted (69.4% of all men and 64% of all women). Because the aim of Study 1 was to understand the differences between survivors, rape impacted (through a close friend/relative/loved one) and unimpacted people, we excluded people from the analysis who reported to know a rape survivor, but the person was not a close relation (
We conducted the first study in 2014. We used a paper-and-pencil questionnaire for the student sample and an online questionnaire for the community sample. We conducted the research following the IRB approval of the Research Ethics Committee (REC) of United Ethical Review Committee for Research in Psychology (EPKEB).
After giving informed consent, participants completed the Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (18 items, current study’s Cronbach α = .91; Validated Hungarian version of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (10 items hostile sexism scale, current study’s Cronbach α = .89; 11 items, benevolent sexism scale, current study’s Cronbach α = .86;
To test our hypothesis regarding prior experience with rape, we conducted a one-way ANCOVA to determine the difference between survivors, rape impacted people, and unimpacted people in rape myth acceptance, controlling for the effect of gender. There was a significant difference in the level of rape myth acceptance among people with different experiences with rape
Our hypothesis was that rape survivors would accept rape myths less than unimpacted people (H1) and that rape impacted people would accept rape myths less than unimpacted people (H2). In contrast to some earlier studies (
Following the results of Study 1, we were interested to reveal whether rape myth acceptance predicted uncertain rape cases more strongly than certain ones, considering that rape in its stereotypical form is condemned by all members of society, but cases are not always labeled as rape when they are less stereotypical, which we tested in Study 2.
In Study 2 we were interested in the different outcomes connected to rape myth acceptance. The importance of examining the consequences of rape myth acceptance is that they have an important role in how people evaluate rape cases (
The importance of examining reactions to various rape scenarios is twofold: on the one hand, people’s reactions reflect the normative context of rape in society, therefore, it affects whether perpetrators do or do not think that rape is a serious crime and what constitutes rape, and on the other hand, it affects whether survivors report the case to the police and seek help at all (
Based on previous research (e.g.,
The study was conducted in Hungary and we recruited participants with the help of an opinion poll company (SoliData) who relied on an online pool of respondents that were demographically similar to Hungarian society in terms of gender, age, and type of settlement, but participants had a higher-than-average education (
Data was collected in 2016. The language of the questionnaire was Hungarian. After giving their informed consent similarly to Study 1, participants were presented with a certain and uncertain rape scenario in this order (for the exact wording of the cases, see Text S1 in the
Participants completed the Hungarian version of the Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (18 items, current study’s Cronbach α = .90; Participants also completed the short form of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (5 items hostile sexism scale, current study’s Cronbach α = .84; 5 items benevolent sexism scale current study’s Cronbach α = .79;
We tested whether people evaluated the uncertain and certain scenarios differently with a paired sample t-test where we found that participants blamed the survivor more,
Rape cases | Uncertain case |
Certain case |
||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
B | ΔR2 | R2 | B [CI] | ΔR2 | R2 | |||||||
Outcome variable: Rape labeling | ||||||||||||
Step 1 | ||||||||||||
Constant | 4.55 [4.18, 4.94] | 0.19 | < .001 | .01 | .01 | 6.51 [6.33, 6.70] | 0.10 | < .001 | .00 | .00 | ||
Gender | 0.27 [0.02, 0.50] | 0.12 | 0.07 | .027 | 0.13 [0.01, 0.25] | 0.06 | 0.07 | .040 | ||||
Step 2 | ||||||||||||
Constant | 6.72 [6.17, 7.34] | 0.25 | < .001 | .13 | .13 | 6.82 [6.56, 7.09] | 0.14 | < .001 | .01 | .02 | ||
Gender | 0.15 [–0.09, 0.37] | 0.11 | 0.04 | .191 | 0.11 [–0.00, 0.22] | 0.06 | 0.06 | .076 | ||||
RMA | –0.60 [–0.72, –0.50] | 0.05 | –0.36 | < .001 | –0.09 [–0.15, –0.03] | 0.03 | –0.10 | .001 | ||||
Outcome variable: Victim-blaming | ||||||||||||
Step 1 | ||||||||||||
Constant | 3.39 [3.04, 3.73] | 0.17 | < .001 | .00 | .00 | 1.57 [1.37, 1.78] | 0.10 | < .001 | .00 | .00 | ||
Gender | –0.02 [–0.24, 0.19] | 0.11 | –0.01 | .836 | –0.10 [–0.22, 0.02] | 0.06 | –0.05 | .040 | ||||
Step 2 | ||||||||||||
Constant | 1.34 [0.85, 1.79] | 0.22 | < .001 | .15 | .15 | 0.93 [0.63, 1.23] | 0.14 | < .001 | .04 | .04 | ||
Gender | 0.09 [–0.10, 0.29] | 0.10 | 0.03 | .352 | 0.07 [–0.18, 0.05] | 0.06 | 0.02 | .076 | ||||
RMA | 0.57 [–0.48, 0.66] | 0.04 | 0.39 | < .001 | 0.18 [–0.12, 0.24] | 0.03 | –0.01 | .001 |
Supporting our hypothesis and in line with previous findings (
Besides examining the replicability of our results, in Study 3 we wanted to understand how rape myth acceptance adds to the understanding of the connection between prior experience with rape and the evaluation of rape cases. In a preregistered study (
We collected data amongst university students and recruited additional participants online using convenience sampling. We used G*Power (
We categorized participants based on their prior experience with rape similarly to Study 1. Twenty-four participants reported that they were rape survivors (4.9% of all men and 7.2% of all women participants), 50 participants were impacted by rape by knowing someone close to them who had experienced rape (16.4% of all men and 14.5% of all women), and 265 participants were categorized as unimpacted people (78.7% of all men and 78.3% of all women). As the aim was to understand the differences between survivors, rape impacted (through a close friend/relative/loved one) and unimpacted people, we excluded people from the analysis who knew somebody impacted by rape, but this person was not a close relative or friend (
We collected data for Study 3 in 2021 using an online questionnaire. We conducted the research following the IRB approval of the Research Ethics Committee (REC) of ELTE Eötvös Loránd University.
After giving informed consent, participants received either a certain or an uncertain rape scenario using the same vignettes as in Study 2, in a randomized order. We measured victim-blaming and rape labeling identically to Study 2. After that, participants completed the Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (18 items, current study’s Cronbach α = .89;
Because we did not have enough survivors in the sample, we created two groups based on prior experience with rape: (1) a group of impacted people in which participants were either survivors of rape or had a close friend or relative who experienced rape, and (2) unimpacted people in which participants neither experienced rape, nor knew any survivors. We chose to do this to be able to run our pre-registered statistical analyses which we would have been unable to do using three groups, given the low number of survivors in the sample. We acknowledge that this simplification conceals important differences between survivors and impacted people that we could not present and analyze in the current analysis.
To test Hypothesis 1, we conducted an ANCOVA to compare rape myth acceptance among impacted and unimpacted participants, controlling for the effect of gender. The results revealed a significant difference between the groups:
To test Hypothesis 2, two paired sample
To test Hypotheses 3–6, two separate mixed ANOVA models were performed for the two dependent variables: rape labeling and victim-blaming, controlling for the effect of gender. Respondents’ prior experience (rape-impacted vs. unimpacted) was entered as the between-subject variable to compare the two groups in victim-blaming and rape labeling. Rape scenario (certain vs. uncertain rape cases) was entered as the within-subject variable and rape myth acceptance was entered as the moderator in both models. Although, we supposed that the tests would be robust enough to handle outliers, because Levene's test for equality of variances was violated for the certain rape labeling scenario, possibly resulting from the close to ceiling effect on rape labeling, we treated the extreme outliers as missing values for this one variable. The main effect of rape scenario was found to be statistically significant on rape labeling,
Group/Rape scenario | |||
---|---|---|---|
ImpactedVB | |||
Certain | 1.30 | .81 | 74 |
Uncertain | 2.41 | 1.54 | 74 |
ImpactedRL | |||
Certain | 6.59 | .94 | 64 |
Uncertain | 5.66 | 1.74 | 74 |
UnimpactedVB | |||
Certain | 1.24 | .63 | 265 |
Uncertain | 2.92 | 1.49 | 265 |
UnimpactedRL | |||
Certain | 6.59 | .87 | 252 |
Uncertain | 5.10 | 1.66 | 265 |
The main purpose of our research was to examine rape myths as cognitive schemas, to understand how impacted and unimpacted people accept rape myths and how they evaluate rape cases. Importantly, we could not run the analysis for the originally planned three groups to test our first hypothesis regarding differences between survivor, impacted, and unimpacted groups, because we did not have enough survivors in our sample. Therefore, we merged the groups of survivors and those who knew someone close to them who had experienced rape, because we wanted to examine whether people with prior experience with rape accepted rape myths differently than those who did not. This allowed us to run the pre-registered analyses, however, admittedly, it reduced the complexity that we were originally striving for.
Replicating the results of Study 1, we found that impacted people accepted rape myths less than unimpacted people.
In support of Hypothesis 2 and 3, and similarly to Study 2, we found that people labeled uncertain rape cases less as rape and blamed the victim more compared to certain rape cases and that people who accepted rape myths more, were more likely to blame the victim and label the case less as rape. Furthermore, in connection with Hypothesis 4, similarly to Study 2, we found that rape myth acceptance is a stronger predictor of rape labeling and victim-blaming of uncertain cases compared to certain ones. These results are in line with previous findings (
In connection with Hypotheses 5 and 6, we did not find a difference in the effect of rape myth acceptance on rape labeling or on victim-blaming between impacted and unimpacted people, which means that none of the groups relied more on their rape myth acceptance when evaluating the case. However, we found that impacted people labeled the uncertain case more as rape and blamed the victim less, compared to unimpacted people, while there was no such difference between the groups in connection with the certain rape scenario. This means that impacted people interpreted those uncertain situations as rape similarly to the certain one, possibly because of their personal experience with rape and the knowledge that rape is often not stereotypical. However, these differences between the groups were not present when the case was certain which both impacted and unimpacted people interpreted similarly.
The aim of our research was, on the one hand, to examine the relationship between rape myth acceptance and prior experience with rape, and on the other, to show that rape myth acceptance predicts different evaluations of different rape scenarios. Unsupportive reactions to rape survivors are not only a global public health problem but a human rights violation too. The cause of the high perpetration and latency rates is that sexual violence is a systematic problem connected to society’s views about rape. Therefore, individual attitudinal aspects of rape myth acceptance can only be considered by taking the social system and cultural norms regarding rape into account. Examining rape myth acceptance of rape impacted people was a first step toward understanding the problem in a more complex way.
In Study 1 and 3 we found that people with personal experience with rape endorse rape myths less than unimpacted people. In Study 1 survivors and impacted people separately and in Study 3 impacted people together with survivors accepted rape myths less than unimpacted people. However, our cross-sectional method did not give us information about causality. On the one hand, it is possible that rape survivors share their trauma with people who endorse rape myths less, knowing that they will be more understanding and offer better help. On the other hand, if people learn that a friend or close relative of theirs became a victim of rape it may decrease their rape myth acceptance. This is because rape is more likely to be an event that is counter-stereotypical or uncertain, contradicts the idea of “real rape” and strengthens that rape is more of a violent crime than a sexual one and it is not enjoyable to the victim. Although it is important to mention that people who said that they had known someone who had been raped already accepted the fact that it was rape, while people high in rape myth acceptance may report that they do not know anyone who was raped because they label incidents less as rape. It is for this reason that we wanted to test whether the level of rape myth acceptance would predict rape labeling. Rape does not usually happen in dark alleys and by deviant perpetrators, therefore we examined whether the evaluation of counter-stereotypical and stereotypical (uncertain vs. certain) rape cases were related to the participant’s rape myth acceptance. We found, in line with previous research (
Furthermore, our results offer an empirical explanation for the contradiction that although people think that rape is unacceptable and suggest that they would punish the perpetrator severely (
Although not a limitation of the study, it is important to note that we collected the data for Study 1 and Study 2 before the #MeToo campaign which received widespread attention worldwide (
Furthermore, in Study 2 we were not able to randomize rape scenarios for technical reasons, therefore there is a chance that this influenced our results. It is possible that when participants read the certain rape case, they evaluated the uncertain in the light of the previous one and this is the reason that they evaluated it less harshly than the certain one. However, as we mentioned earlier, we ran an additional analysis which suggested that the results were not a consequence of the order effect only (see S2 Text in the
An important additional asset of these studies is that we tested rape myth acceptance and evaluation of rape cases in an underrepresented region of social psychological research, and especially of research on rape and rape myths. This region is not only underrepresented in these research areas, but the level of sexism is higher and gender equality is lower in Hungary than in the US or in Western Europe (
We found that rape survivors, in general, accepted rape myths less than unimpacted people. These results suggest that research should further examine rape impacted people because they can function as advocates for rape survivors. Furthermore, this may be a fruitful area for future research to investigate whether survivors share their trauma more frequently with people with lower rape myth acceptance or the knowledge that a close person became the survivor of rape decreases rape myth acceptance. The relevance of understanding the reaction of rape impacted people was that they can offer the most direct social support for survivors and can engage in collective action even more effectively than survivors (see
Our research supported the hypothesis that rape myths function as cognitive schemas and are connected to how people evaluate rape cases. However, we did not find an interaction between rape myth acceptance, the certainty of the case, and prior experience with rape which means that the connection between evaluating rape cases by impacted and unimpacted people was not dependent on their level of rape myth acceptance. Future research should investigate the possibly more complex connection between these variables than this study could account for. Nevertheless, our results give an explanation for the phenomenon of why people judge rape perpetrators harshly and at the same time blame victims and explain away rape and also highlight the important role of rape impacted people in bringing about change in connection with rape in society.
For this article, a dataset is freely available (
For this article, the following Supplementary Materials are available (for access see
Via the PsychArchives repository:
Datasets of Studies 1–3
Codebook
Additional materials (tables, texts)
Via the AsPredicted repository:
Preregistration
The authors have no funding to report.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report.