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The Resident-intruder Paradigm: A Standardized Test for Aggression, Violence and Social Stress
Published on: July 4, 2013
Acceptance of sexual aggression myths in a representative sample of German residents
Philipp Süssenbach1, Gerd Bohner
1Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Germany. psuessenbach@uni-bielefeld.de
Abstract:
A representative sample of German residents (N = 5397) was surveyed with the aim of studying their acceptance of contemporary rape myths (RMA), using items from the Acceptance of Modern Myths About Sexual Aggression Scale [AMMSA; Gerger et al., 2007] in relation to demographic variables (e.g., gender, age), intolerant belief systems (e.g., sexism, islamophobia), the ideologies of rightwing authoritarianism (RWA), and social dominance orientation (SDO), as well as gender identification. Age showed a U-shaped relationship with RMA, whereas gender was unrelated to RMA. For men (women), greater identification with their gender was associated with higher (lower) RMA. Substantial correlations of RMA with intolerant belief systems support the idea of a schema of intolerance. Although RWA and SDO were both related to RMA, only RWA explained unique variance beyond the effects of intolerant belief systems. Results are discussed in comparison to prior studies using mainly student samples.
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