Abstract
This research examined personal beliefs and perceptions of cultural stereotypes surrounding rape victims. Students (ages 18–21) at a primarily Caucasian University listed either their personal beliefs or their perceptions of cultural stereotypes surrounding rape victims and rated a specific rape victim either according to their personal beliefs or their perceptions of cultural stereotypes. Personal beliefs about rape victims tended to focus more on perceptions of victim reactions to the rape (e.g., depression, anxiety, etc.) rather than on rape myths (e.g., she asked for it, was promiscuous, etc.). Perceptions of cultural stereotypes, however, comprised rape myths rather than the victim's reactions to rape. We propose that perceptions of rape victims are more multifaceted than has previously been suggested.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Bargh, J. A. (1996). Automaticity in social psychology. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 169-183). NewYork: Guilford.
Bell, S. T., Kuriloff, P. J., & Lottes, I. (1994). Understanding attributions of blame in stranger rape and date rape situations: An examination of gender, race, identification, and students' social perceptions of rape victims. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1719-1734.
Bridges, J. S. (1991). Perceptions of date and stranger rape: Adifference in sex role expectations and rape-supportive beliefs. Sex Roles, 24, 291-307.
Bridges, J. S., & McGrail, C. A. (1989). Attributions of responsibility for date and stranger rape. Sex Roles, 21, 273-286.
Burgess, A.W., & Holmstrom, L. L. (1974). Rape: Victims of crisis. Bowie, MD: Brady.
Burgess, A. W., & Holmstrom, L. L. (1976). Coping behavior of the rape victim. American Journal of Psychiatry, 133, 413-418.
Burgess, A.W., & Holmstrom, L. L. (1978). Recovery from rape and prior life stresses. Research in Nursing and Health, 1, 165-174.
Burgess, D., & Borgida, E. (1999). Who women are, who women should be: Descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotyping in sex discrimination. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 5, 665-692.
Burt, M. R. (1980). Cultural myths and support for rape. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 217-230.
Burt, M. R., & Albin, R. S. (1981). Rape myths, rape definitions, and probability of conviction. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 11, 212-230.
Calhoun, K. S., Atkeson, B. M., & Resick, P. A. (1982). A longitudinal examination of fear reactions in victims of rape. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 29, 655-661.
Calhoun, L.G., Cann, A., Selby, J.W., & Magee, D.L. (1981). Victim emotional response: Effects on social reaction to victims of rape. British Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 17-21.
Campbell, R., & Johnson, C. R. (1997). Police officers' perceptions of rape: Is there consistency between state law and individual beliefs? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12, 255-274.
Check, J. V. P., & Malamuth, N. M. (1983). Sex role stereotyping and reactions to depictions of stranger versus acquaintance rape. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 344-356.
Cross, S. E., & Madson, L. (1997). Models of the self: Self-construals and gender. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 5-37.
Deitz, S. R., Blackwell, K. T., Daley, P. C., & Bentley, B. J. (1982). Measurement of empathy toward rape victims and rapists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 372-384.
Deitz, S. R., & Byrnes, L.E. (1981). Attribution of responsibility for sexual assault: The influence of observer empathy and defendant occupation and attractiveness. Journal of Psychology, 108, 17-29.
Deitz, S. R., Littman, M., & Bentley, B. J. (1984). Attribution of responsibility for rape: The influence of observer empathy, victim resistance, and victim attractiveness. Sex Roles, 10, 261-280.
Devine, P. G. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their automatic and controlled components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5-18.
Devine, P. G., & Elliot, A. J. (1995). Are racial stereotypes really fading? The Princeton trilogy revisited. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1139-1150.
Edmonds, E. M., Cahoon, D. D., & Shipman, M. (1991). Predictions of opposite-sex attitudes concerning gender-related social issues. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 29, 295-296.
Frazier, P. A., & Haney, B. (1996). Sexual assault cases in the legal system: Police, prosecutor, and victim perspectives. Law and Human Behavior, 20, 607-628.
Frohmann, L. (1991). Discrediting victims' allegations of sexual assault: Prosecutorial accounts of case rejections. Social Problems, 38, 213-226.
Giacopassi, D. J., & Dull, R. T. (1986). Gender and racial differences in the acceptance of rape myths within a college population. Sex Roles, 15, 63-75.
Gilmartin-Zena, P. (1988). Gender differences in students' attitudes toward rape. Sociological Focus, 21, 279-292.
Glick, P., Diebold, J., Bailey-Werner, B., & Zhu, L. (1997). The two faces of Adam: Ambivalent sexism and polarized attitudes toward women. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 1323-1334.
Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491-512.
Greenwald, A.G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotyping. Psychological Review, 102, 4-27.
Heise, L., Pitanguy, J., & Germain, A. (1993). Violence against women: The hidden health burden. Washington, DC: TheWorld Bank.
Hickman, S. E., & Muehlenhard, C. L. (1997). College women's fears and precautionary behaviors relating to acquaintance rape and stranger rape. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 527-547.
Hinck, S. S., & Thomas, R.W. (1999). Rape myth acceptance in college students: How far have we come? Sex Roles, 40, 815-832.
Holmstrom, L. L., & Burgess, A.W. (1983). The victim of rape. New Brunswick: Transaction.
Hoyt, S. K. (1998). Beyond prejudiced thoughts: Conceptual links between classicism and discrimination. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Miami University, Oxford, OH.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. New York: Free Press.
Johnson, B. E., Kuck, D. L., & Schander, P. R. (1997). Rape myth acceptance and sociodemographic characteristics: A multidimensional analysis. Sex Roles, 36, 693-707.
Jones, E. E., & Sigall, H. (1971). The bogus pipeline: A new paradigm for measuring affect and attitude. Psychological Bulletin, 76, 349-364.
Kahn, A. S., Mathie, V. A., & Torgler, C. (1994). Rape scripts and rape acknowledgment. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 53-66.
Kanekar, S., Shaherwalla, A., Franco, B., Kunju, T., & Pinto, A. J. (1991). The acquaintance predicament of a rape victim. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 1524-1544.
Katz, I., & Haas, R. G. (1988). Racial ambivalence and American value conflict: Correlational and priming studies of dual cognitive structures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 893-905.
Kilpatrick, D. G., Resick, P. A., & Veronen, L. J. (1981). Effects of a rape experience: A longitudinal study. Journal of Social Issues, 37, 105-122.
King, H. E., Rotter, M. J., Calhoun, L.G., & Selby, J.W. (1978). Perceptions of the rape incident: Physician and volunteer counselors. Journal of Community Psychology, 6, 74-77.
Kopper, B. A. (1996). Gender, gender identity, rape myth acceptance, and time of initial resistance on the perception of acquaintance rape blame and avoidability. Sex Roles, 34, 81-93.
Koss, M. P. (1985). The hidden rape victim: Personality, attitudinal, and situational characteristics. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 9, 192-212.
Koss, M. P., Dinero, T. E., Seibel, C. A., & Cox, S. L. (1988). Stranger and acquaintance rape: Are there differences in the victim's experience? Psychology of Women Quarterly, 12, 1-24.
Koss, M. P., Goodman, L. A., Browne, A., Fitzgerald, L. F., Keita, G. P., & Russo, N. F. (1994). No safe haven: Male violence against women at home, at work, and in the community. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Koss, M. P., Heise, L., & Russo, N. F. (1994). The global health burden of rape. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 509-537.
Krahe, B. (1988). Victim and observer characteristics as determinants of responsibility attributions to victims of rape. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 50-58.
Krulewitz, J. E. (1982). Reactions to rape victims: Effects of rape circumstances, victim's emotional response, and sex of helper. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 29, 645-654.
LaFree, G. D. (1989). Rape and criminal justice: The social construction of sexual assault. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
L'Armand, K., & Pepitone, A. (1982). Judgments of rape: A study of victim-rapist relationship and victim sexual history. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 134-139.
Lonsway, K. A., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1994). Rape myths: In review. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 133-1164.
Lonsway, K. A., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1995). Attitudinal antecedents of rape myth acceptance: A theoretical and empirical reexamination. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 704-711.
Luginbuhl, J., & Mullin, C. (1981). Rape and responsibility: How and how much is the victim blamed? Sex Roles, 7, 547-559.
Madon, S. (1997).What do people believe about gay males? A study of stereotype content and strength. Sex Roles, 37, 663-685.
Madon, S., Guyll, M., Aboufadel, K., Montiel, E., Smith, A., Palumbo, P., & Jussim, L. (2001). Ethnic and national stereotypes: The Princeton trilogy revisited and revised. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 996-1010.
Malamuth, N. M., & Brown, L. M. (1994). Sexually aggressive men's perceptions of women's communications: Testing three explanations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 699-712.
Miller, A. G., Ashton, W. A., McHoskey, J. W., Gimbel, J. (1990). What price attractiveness? Stereotype and risk factors in suntanning behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20, 1272-1300.
Muehlenhard, C. L., & Rodgers, C. S. (1998). Token resistance to sex: New perspectives on an old stereotype. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 443-463.
Nadelson, C. C., Notman, M. T., Zackson, H., & Gornick, J. (1982). A follow-up study of rape victims. American Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 1266-1270.
Osland, J. A., Fitch, M., & Willis, E. E. (1996). Likelihood to rape in college males. Sex Roles, 35, 171-183.
Plaud, J. J., & Bigwood, S. J. (1997). The relationship of male self-report of rape supportive attitudes, sexual fantasy, social desirability and physiological arousal to sexually coercive stimuli. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53, 935-942.
Pollard, P. (1992). Judgments about victims and attackers in depicted rapes: A review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 307-326.
Russell, D. E. H. (1998). Wife rape and the law. In M. E. Odem & Clay-Warner, J. (Eds.), Confronting rape and sexual assault (pp. 71-81). Wilmington, DE: SR Books/Scholarly Resources.
Schneider, L. J., Ee, J. S., & Aronson, H. (1994). Effects of victim gender and physical vs. psychological trauma/injury on observers' perceptions of sexual assault and its aftereffects. Sex Roles, 30, 793-808.
Shaver, K. C. (1970). Defensive attribution: Effects of severity and relevance on the responsibility assigned for an accident. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14, 101-113.
Sinclair, H. C., & Bourne, L. E. (1998). Cycle of blame or just world: Effects of legal verdicts on gender patterns in rape myth acceptance and victim empathy. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 575-588.
Stangor, C., & Lange, J. E. (1994). Mental representations of social groups: Advances in understanding stereotypes and stereotyping. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 26). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Tetreault, P. A., & Barnett, M. A. (1987). Reactions to stranger and acquaintance rape. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11, 353-358.
Tieger, T. (1981). Self-rated likelihood of raping and the social perception of rape. Journal of Research in Personality, 15, 147-158.
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (1997). Criminal victimization in the United States. Washington, DC: Author.
Ward, C. A. (1995). Attitudes toward rape: Feminist and social psychological perspectives. London: Sage.
Weir, J. A., & Wrightsman, L. S. (1990). The determinants of mock jurors' verdicts in a rape case. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20, 901-919.
Wicker, A.W. (1969). Attitudes versus actions: The relationship of verbal and overt behavioral responses to attitude objects. Journal of Social Issues, 25, 41-78.
Williams, K. (1981). Few convictions in rape cases: Empirical evidence concerning some alternative explanations. Journal of Criminal Justice, 9, 23-36.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Buddie, A.M., Miller, A.G. Beyond Rape Myths: A More Complex View of Perceptions of Rape Victims. Sex Roles 45, 139–160 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013575209803
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013575209803