Digital Commons Network^™

Context Matters: Evaluating Social Judgments Of Acquaintance Rape Myths, Michelle E. Deming

Theses and Dissertations

The objectives of my dissertation are to: 1) determine the social psychological factors affecting rape myth judgments and, 2) develop an instrument that utilizes realistic social contexts to measure acquaintance rape myth adherence among undergraduate students. The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMA; McMahon and Farmer 2011; Payne et al. 1999) was used to create acquaintance rape vignettes using factorial surveys (Rossi and Anderson 1982). I manipulated factors known to be associated with victim-blame such as alcohol, a previous sexual relationship, if the woman is dressed provocatively, the type of relationship (e.g., acquaintance versus friend), if the woman verbally protested, …