Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Gendered Pronouns And Rape Myth Acceptance, Cassandra M. Merritt

Masters Theses

Rape myths, and the acceptance of these rape myths, have been studied extensively for the last several decades. Since the 1980s, researchers have used various rape myth acceptance (RMA) scalesRape Myth Acceptance Scale (Burt 1980), the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Payne et al., 1999), and the Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (McMahon & Farmer, 2011)-to examine whether certain factors (e.g., gender, just world beliefs, gender norm conformity, and police officer bias) influence individual RMA levels. Little to no research has explored how gendered pronouns used in these scales influence the levels of RMA measured. This study seeks to …