Rape myth acceptance in Singapore : understanding the roles of gender, empathy and attitudes toward women

• Main Author: Ng, Li Ling
• Other Authors: Khader Majeed
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76868
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Given the importance of rape myth acceptance in attitudes towards sexual violence and victims as well as the paucity of such studies in a non-western context, this study aimed to examine whether empathy and gender role attitudes interact with gender to influence rape myth acceptance in Singapore. One hundred and forty-one Singaporeans and Permanent Residents (52 males, 89 females) aged 18 to 57 years were randomly assigned to either an objective or empathy condition, in which they were instructed to either remain detached or to place themselves in the victim’s position while reading a written vignette of a rape scenario. Results showed that lower levels of empathy were not significantly associated with rape myth acceptance, and both empathy and empathy priming did not interact with gender to affect rape myth acceptance. However, consistent with past studies, male participants were found to have significantly higher rape myth acceptance and lower levels of empathy than female participants. In addition, the study found gender role attitudes to be a significant moderator of the relationship between gender and RMA. The results help provide insight into the key role that these attitudes play by suggesting that female participants with more traditional gender role attitudes are likely to have greater rape myth acceptance as compared to male participants with more egalitarian gender role attitudes. Implications of these results and future directions are discussed.