From Culture to the Individual: Understanding Perceptions of and Reactions to Sexual Assault

Abstract

Sexual assault is a social and public health issue in the United States, with far-reaching implications and consequences. While it is generally understood that a combination of situational factors, personality characteristics and pre-existing beliefs have an effect on the perceptions of sexual assault, the majority of the research that has been done has looked at these characteristics from the perspective of sexual assault victims. This study is part of a larger longitudinal study that aims to reduce the gap in sexual assault literature by building from the Brofenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory (EST), as well as previous research by McAuslan and colleagues (2017), to employ a cumulative risk model to examine predictors of perceptions of and reactions to a hypothetical sexual assault victim. The study considers early experiences and individual factors (e.g., religiosity, political conservatism, gender role beliefs, dogmatism) as well as rape myth acceptance and reactions to a hypothetical sexual assault victim. A sample of 447 emerging adults were recruited via mTurk. Results suggest that predominant cultural attitudes facilitate intolerant beliefs, and the degree to which a person ascribes to individual intolerant beliefs influence their acceptance of rape myths and perception of sexual assault. Dogmatism, traditional gender role beliefs, political conservativism and extrinsic religiosity were all positively associated. Results also suggest that having more intolerant belief systems (high levels of extrinsic religiosity, dogmatism, traditional gender role beliefs, and conservative political views) relate to higher levels of RMA and more negative reactions to a hypothetical sexual assault victim. RMA was found to be a mediating factor between intolerant beliefs and reactions to sexual assault disclosure. The results of this research may provide direction for more targeted sexual assault education and prevention programming.