Young People Are Willing to Intervene Against Rape Myths Online: A Simulated Social Media Experiment

Social media present opportunities to intervene on harmful rape myth beliefs among adolescents and young adults, such as through digital bystander intervention.

We conducted a digital experiment to examine young peoples' willingness to intervene on rape myth comments in a simulated social media environment. Participants were adolescents and young adults (n = 712) aged 18-25 years (M = 22.14, SD = 1.92). Participants randomly viewed social media posts with the following: (1) rape myth comments, (2) rape myth comments with bystander intervention comments, or (3) control condition with only neutral comments. Participants then reported willingness to intervene, gender stereotype agreement, alcohol rape myth acceptance, and perceived normativity of bystander behavior.

Rape myth comments (with or without bystander comments) led to greater willingness to intervene among participants. Alcohol rape myth acceptance, perceived normativity of bystander behavior, and gender (women vs. men) were all significant moderators of this relationship. Participants susceptible to alcohol rape myths and those who were men were less willing to intervene in the rape myth and rape myth + bystander conditions. Participants who perceived bystander behavior to be less normal were more willing to intervene in the rape myth-only condition.

This study explored attitudes of young people exposed to harmful rape myth comments on social media. Future studies should continue this work, especially pursuing ways to reduce undesirable moderation effects of alcohol rape myths and gender.