Rape Myth Acceptance and Judgments of Vulnerability to Sexual Assault: An Internet Experiment

Processing strategies in risk assessment were studied in an Internet experiment. 399 women aged 16 yrs old and older, who were either low or high in rape myth acceptance (RMA), were asked to recall either 2 or 6 behaviors that either increase or decrease the risk of being sexually assaulted. Later they judged their personal vulnerability to sexual assault under either no time pressure (no response deadline) or time pressure (response deadline of 5 sec). Without time pressure, the results were opposite to previous research: Women low in RMA relied on ease of recall and reported higher vulnerability after recalling few rather than many risk-increasing behaviors, or many rather than few risk-decreasing behaviors; women high in RMA relied on the amount of information recalled, which resulted in an opposite pattern of vulnerability judgments. No influences of ease of recall or amount recalled on vulnerability judgments were detected under time pressure