Matching Items (3)
Description
The current study examines the effects that college students' personal characteristics, such as age, sex, gender, or race/ethnicity, have on students’ perceptions of perceived victim blameworthiness. This study also examines how college students’ perceptions of blameworthiness change after being exposed to real life sexual assault vignettes that tap into issues surrounding rape myths. Specifically, I assess blameworthiness perceptions surrounding rape myths regarding clothing, drinking, and various situational characteristics. Blameworthiness perceptions were examined through a survey with pre-test and post-test questions that occurred before and after the student reviewed different sexual assault vignettes. Descriptive statistics show that the majority of college students, after being introduced to the vignettes, reduced their blameworthiness beliefs. Results from the regression analysis show that few individual characteristics are associated with changes in blameworthiness beliefs. Overall, these findings suggest that exposure to sexual assault vignettes have an effect on how individuals perceive victim blameworthiness.
ContributorsJones, Teairstayn K (Author) / Wallace, Danielle (Thesis director) / Fox-Talbot, Kate (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor, Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Do the circumstances of sexual assault situations shape how individuals view a victims’ blameworthiness and risk? To examine this, data were collected on college students' perceptions of a victims’ blameworthiness and a victims’ perceived amount of risk specifically looking at how these views differ across scenarios portraying varying rape myths. College students (n=395) from Arizona State University were recruited via professors to participate in the survey. In the analysis, chi-square tests were run and zero-inflated ordered probit logistic regressions (ZIOP) with clustered standard errors predicting risk and blame perceptions across scenarios were conducted. The results show that the college students’ perceptions of risk and victim blameworthiness did vary across the rape myths that were shown within the scenarios. The chi-square tests demonstrated that for all three of the risk and blame questions, respondents’ answers on the outcome were dependent on the scenario. The ZIOP demonstrated that overall, the respondents were unwilling to assign risk and blame to the victims in the scenarios, however, when they assigned risk and blame answers varied across the different scenarios. This indicates that the rape myths portrayed in each scenario changed how individuals rated a victim’s perceived blameworthiness and risk. This has implications for the continuation of exposure to sexual assault awareness training and courses.
ContributorsJones, Teairstayn Kaylynn Angel (Author) / Wallace, Danielle (Thesis advisor) / Fox-Talbot, Kathleen A (Committee member) / Montes, Andrea N (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
For 40 years, rape myth scholars have assessed the effects of rape myths on perceptions of and responses to rape, demonstrating that rape myths pose significant barriers to rape prevention efforts and contribute to attrition. Most of this research centers female victims, theorizing rape myths’ relationship to gender stereotypes and how they maintain women’s oppression. However, scholars have largely ignored the relationship between rape myths and race and how rape myths contribute to racial oppression. I used an intersectional framework to reconceptualize rape myths as tools of both gender and racial oppression. I argued that rape myths have race-specific effects on rape perceptions and case processing outcomes, that rape myths contribute to racial disparities that align with racist social hierarchies, and that their influence is structural and systemic. I used three studies to assess these assertions. First, I used a randomized vignette survey to explore how victim and perpetrator race (e.g., White, Black, and Latinx) moderate the effects of rape myths (e.g., “victim precipitation,” “accidental rape,” “women cry rape,” and the “real rape” myth), on victim and perpetrator blame in a hypothetical rape (Chapter 2). Second, I assessed how victim race (e.g., White, Black, and Latinx) moderates the effects of rape myth factors (e.g., victim precipitation, credibility issues, real rape consistency) on police case processing decisions in real sexual assault cases (Chapter 3). Third, I analyzed sex crimes detectives’ descriptions of victims, reports, and decisions to determine how rape myths influence their focal concerns (Chapter 4).
Collectively, findings indicate that rape myths contribute to racial oppression. In Chapters 2 and 3 I found that race moderated the effects of rape myths on rape perceptions and police decisions. Further, rape myths had more negative impacts for Black and Latinx victims, than White victims. Finally, in Chapter 4, I found that detectives use rape myths to evaluate victim credibility, evidence, and case viability, suggesting that rape myths’ influence is structural and systemic. In addition to implications for practitioners, these findings indicate that rape myth scholars should rearticulate rape myths and their effects intersectionally, with particular attention to intersections with race.
ContributorsCoble, Suzanne St. George (Author) / Spohn, Cassia (Thesis advisor) / Stolzenberg, Stacia (Committee member) / Wang, Xia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022