Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2026
09:12
The Resident-intruder Paradigm: A Standardized Test for Aggression, Violence and Social Stress
Published on: July 4, 2013
Oppression through acceptance?: predicting rape myth acceptance and attitudes toward rape victims.
Jericho M Hockett1, Donald A Saucier, Bethany H Hoffman
1Kansas State University.
Violence Against Women
|June 10, 2009
Summary
Dominance attitudes predict rape myth acceptance (RMA) and attitudes toward rape victims. Understanding these links is crucial for addressing sexual aggression and improving support for survivors.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Criminology
- Feminist Theory
Background:
- Feminist theories link dominance and sexual aggression.
- Rape myth acceptance (RMA) predicts sexual aggression but its link to dominance is understudied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test if sex-based oppression and intergroup dominance attitudes predict RMA.
- To determine if these attitudes improve models of rape-related attitudes.
Main Methods:
- Survey data collected on dominance and sex-based oppression.
- Statistical models used to predict RMA and attitudes toward rape victims.
Main Results:
- Sex-based oppression and intergroup dominance attitudes significantly predicted RMA.
- These attitudes uniquely predicted rape-related attitudes beyond other factors.
Conclusions:
- Dominance and sex-based oppression attitudes are important predictors of rape myth acceptance.
- Findings support feminist theories and highlight targets for intervention regarding sexual aggression.
Related Concept Videos
01:14Fundamental Attribution Error
According to some social psychologists, people tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations—or attributions—for the behavior of other people. They tend to assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others. They tend to fail to recognize when the behavior of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state. This erroneous assumption is called the fundamental attribution...
02:55Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Humans are very diverse and although we share many similarities, we also have many differences. The social groups we belong to help form our identities (Tajfel, 1974). These differences may be difficult for some people to reconcile, which may lead to prejudice toward people who are different. Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Prejudice is common against people who are...
02:09Stereotype Threat and Self-fulfilling Prophecies
When we hold a stereotype about a person, we have expectations that he or she will fulfill that stereotype. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation held by a person that alters his or her behavior in a way that tends to make it true. When we hold stereotypes about a person, we tend to treat the person according to our expectations. This treatment can influence the person to act according to our stereotypic expectations, thus confirming our stereotypic beliefs. Research by Rosenthal and...
02:09Bystander Effect
The discussion of bullying highlights the problem of witnesses not intervening to help a victim. This is a common occurrence, as the following well-publicized event demonstrates. In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a knife near the back entrance to her apartment building and again in the hallway inside her apartment building. When the attack occurred, she screamed for help numerous times and eventually died from her stab wounds.
02:04Bullying
A modern form of aggression is bullying. As you learn in your study of child development, socializing and playing with other children is beneficial for children’s psychological development. However, as you may have experienced as a child, not all play behavior has positive outcomes. Some children are aggressive and want to play roughly. Other children are selfish and do not want to share toys. One form of negative social interactions among children that has become a national concern is bullying.
01:54Attitudes
Attitude is our evaluation of a person, an idea, or an object. We have attitudes for many things ranging from products that we might pick up in the supermarket to people around the world to political policies. Typically, attitudes are favorable or unfavorable: positive or negative (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). And, they have three components: an affective component (feelings), a behavioral component (the effect of the attitude on behavior), and a cognitive component (belief and knowledge;...