This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bohner, G. Articles by Rutz, S. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Rape Myth Acceptance and Accessibility of the Gender Category

Department of Social Psychology, University of Mannheim, GBohner{at}sowi.uni-mannheim.de

Frank Siebler

Department of Social Psychology, University of Mannheim

Sabine Sturm

Department of Social Psychology, University of Mannheim

Dagmar Effler

Department of Social Psychology, University of Mannheim

Miriam Litters

Department of Social Psychology, University of Mannheim

Marc-Andre Reinhard

Department of Social Psychology, University of Mannheim

Stefanie Rutz

Department of Social Psychology, University of Mannheim

Research suggests that women low in rape myth acceptance (RMA) perceive sexual violence at an intergroup level (as a threat by all men against all women), whereas women high in RMA perceive sexual violence at an interpersonal level (as an interaction of certain individuals; Bohner, Weisbrod, Raymond, Barzvi, & Schwarz, 1993). Extending this reasoning, we hypothesized that the gender category would generally be more chronically accessible to low RMA women than high-RMA women. In three studies, spontaneous gender-related responses were recorded. In Study 1, 46 female students provided open-ended self-descriptions in response to the question `Who am I?' In Study 2, 51 female users of a public library judged pairs of two women and of a woman and a man for similarity. In Study 3, 48 female students completed word fragments; critical items had both gender-related and neutral solutions. Towards the end of each study, participants' RMA was assessed. As predicted, low-RMA (versus high-RMA) participants were more likely to spontaneously refer to being a woman in their self-descriptions (Study 1), judged `woman-man pairs' as less similar than a `woman-woman pair' (Study 2), and created female gender-related word-completions both faster and more frequently (Study 3).

Key Words: chronic accessibility • gender • rape myth acceptance • social judgment

References

• Abrams, D., Thomas, J., & Hogg, M. A. (1990). Numerical distinctiveness, social identity and gender salience. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 87-92.
• Bohner, G. (1998). Vergewvaltigungsmythen: Social psychologische Untersuchungen über täaterentlastende und opferfeindliche Überzeugungen im Bereich sexueller Gewalt [Rape myths: Social psychological studies on beliefs that exonerate the assailant and blame the victim of sexual violence]. Landau, Germany: Verlag Empirische Padagogik.
• Bohner, G., Reinhard, M.-A., Rutz, S., Sturm, S., Kerschbaum, B., & Effler, D. (1998). Rape myths as neutralizing cognitions: Evidence for a causal impact of anti-victim attitudes on men's self-reported likelihood of raping. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 257-268.
• Bohner, G., & Schwarz, N. (1996). The threat of rape: Its psychological impact on nonvictimized women. In D. M. Buss & N. Malamuth (Eds.), Sex, power, conflict: Evolutionary and feminist perspectives (pp. 162-175). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Bohner, G., Siebler, F., & Raaijmakers, Y. (1998, April). Einflüsse der Salienz von Vergewaltigung auf den individuellen und kollektiven Selbstwert von Frauen [Effects of salience of rape on women's individual and collective self-esteem]. Poster presented at the 40th `Tagung experimental arbeitender Psychologlnnen', Marburg, Germany.
• Bohner, G., & Sturm, S. (1997). Evaluative Aspekte sozialer Identitat bei Frauen und Mannern: Vorstellung einer Skala des Kollektiven Selbstwerts in bezug auf das Geschlecht (KSW-G) [Evaluative aspects of social identity in women and men: Presentation of a German scale of collective self-esteem concerning gender]. Psychologische Beitrdge, 39, 322-335.
• Bohner, G., Weisbrod, C., Raymond, P., Barzvi, A., & Schwarz, N. (1993). Salience of rape affects self-esteem: The moderating role of gender and rape myth acceptance. European Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 561-579.
• Burt, M. (1980). Cultural myths and supports of rape. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 217-230.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
• Condor, S. (1986). Sex role beliefs and `traditional' women: Feminist and intergroup perspectives. In S. Wilkinson (Ed.), Feminist social psychology: Developing theory and practice (pp. 97-118). Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
• Costin, F. (1985). Beliefs about rape and women's social roles. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 14, 319-325.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
• Costin, F., & Schwarz, N. (1987). Beliefs about rape and women's social roles: A four-nation study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2, 46-56.
• Crosby, F. (1984). The denial of personal discrimination. American Behavioral Scientist, 27, 371-386.[Abstract]
• Gurin, P., & Markus, H. (1989). Cognitive consequences of gender identity. In S. Skevington & D. Baker (Eds.), The social identity of women (pp. 152-172). London: Sage.
• Hogg, M. A., & Abrams, D. (1988). Social identifications. London: Routledge.
• Kuhn, M. H., & McPartland, T. S. (1954). An empirical investigation of self-attitudes. American Sociological Review, 19, 68-76.[CrossRef]
• Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum.
• Lonsway, K. A., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1994). Rape myths: In review. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 133-164.
• Luhtanen, R., & Crocker, J. (1992). A collective self-esteem scale: Self-evaluation of one's social identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 302-318.[Abstract]
• Macrae, C. N., Bodenhausen, G. V., Milne, A. B., & Ford, R. L. (1997). On the regulation of recollection: The intentional forgetting of stereotypical memories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 709-719.[CrossRef]
• Malamuth, N. M. (1981). Rape proclivity among males. Journal of Social Issues, 37(4), 138-157.
• McGuire, W. J., McGuire, C. V., & Winton, W. (1979). Effects of household sex composition on the salience of one's gender in the spontaneous self-concept. Journal of Experi mental Social Psychology, 15, 77-90.
• Park, B. (1995). Outgroup homogeneity. In A. S. R. Manstead & M. Hewstone (Eds.), The Blackwell encyclopedia of social psychology (pp. 429-431). Oxford: Blackwell.
• Schwarz, N., & Bless, H. (1992). Constructing reality and its alternatives: An inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects in social judgment. In L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgment (pp. 217-245). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Schwarz, N., & Brand, J. F. (1983). Effects of salience of rape on sex-role attitudes, trust, and self-esteem in non-raped women. European Journal of Social Psychology, 13, 71-76.
• Simon, B., Pantaleo, G., & Mummendey, A. (1995). Unique individual or interchangeable group member? The accentuation of intragroup differences versus similarities as an indicator of the individual self versus the collective self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 106-119.[CrossRef]
• Smith, E. R., & Henry, S. (1996). An in-group becomes part of the self: Response time evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 635-642.[Abstract]
• Spitzer, S., Couch, C., & Stratton, J. (1971). The assessment of the selfIowa City, IA: Escort, Sernoll.
• Sturm, S., & Bohner, G. (1995). Akzeptanz von Vergewaltigungsmythen, subjektives Vergewaltigungsrisiko und Strategien der Gegenwehr bei Frauen [Rape myth acceptance, subjective risk of rape, and strategies of defense in women]. In O. Gtinthirkhn, R. Guski, C. Walter, & A. Wohlschlager (Eds.), Experimentelle Psychologie: Beitrdge zur 37. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, Ruhr-Universitdt Bochum, 9.-13.4.1995 (pp. 392). Regensburg, Germany: Roderer.
• Tajfel, H. (1978). Social categorization, social identity, and social comparison. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation between social groups. New York: Academic Press.
• Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Ward, C. A. (1995). Attitudes toward rape. London: Sage.

CiteULike

Connotea

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Technorati

This article has been cited by other articles:

				G. Bohner, F. Siebler, and Y. Raaijmakers Salience of Rape Affects Self-Esteem: Individual versus Collective Self-Aspects Group Processes Intergroup Relations, April 1, 1999; 2(2): 191 - 199. [Abstract] [PDF]

This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bohner, G. Articles by Rutz, S. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?