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Male rape myths: examining the role of victim empathy and socio-demographics in a cross-sectional sample of UK adults

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posted on 2023-12-11, 08:58 authored by Dominic WillmottDominic Willmott, B Kennath Widanaralalage

Whilst much is known about the psychosocial correlates of rape myth beliefs regarding female victims, much less research has investigated factors that underlie male rape myth beliefs. The aim of this study was therefore to examine the role of victim empathy and socio-demographics upon male rape myth beliefs. 303 UK adults aged 18 to 74 (M Age = 31.48) completed the Male Rape Myth Scale (MRMS) and the None-in-Three Victim Responsiveness Assessment (NI3: VRA), alongside assessing socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity, education). Results reveal gender and ethnicity differences in affective victim-empathy sub-scales and overall male rape myth beliefs. Regression analyses determined that age, gender, ethnicity, and affective victim-empathy were significant predictors of male rape myth attitudes. The results have important implications for understanding those who are likely to believe falsehoods pertaining to male survivors of sexual victimisation and highlight the need for targeted educational intervention programmes among the UK public, including in their role as jurors.

History

School

  • Social Sciences and Humanities

Department

  • Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy

Published in

International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice

Volume

76

Publisher

Elsevier

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-ND). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2023-12-01

Publication date

2023-12-09

Copyright date

2023

ISSN

1756-0616

eISSN

1876-763X

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Dom Willmott. Deposit date: 1 December 2023

Article number

100645

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