Explicating the Role of Sexual Coercion and Vulnerability Alcohol Expectancies in Rape Attributions

Abstract

Despite evidence suggesting that alcohol expectancies may influence people’s rape perceptions, no study to date has measured context-specific expectancies comprehensively. This study represents an initial investigation of the role of sexual coercion and vulnerability alcohol expectancies in young Australian adults’ rape blame attributions. Using a vignette method, it was hypothesized that participants’ stronger expectancy endorsement would predict lesser perpetrator blame and greater victim blame. Participants (n = 210; 34.9% males; 18-25 years) read a hypothetical rape scenario and rated dimensions of blameworthiness attributed to the intoxicated sexual perpetrator and victim. Participants completed the Sexual Coercion and Sexual Vulnerability subscales of the Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire for the targets self, men, and women in addition to measures of traditional gender role attitudes and rape myth acceptance. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that, as expected, stronger sexual coercion expectancy predicted lower perpetrator blame and greater victim blame. Self-oriented expectancy predicted evaluations of the perpetrator whereas other-oriented expectancy predicted victim evaluations. These effects were robust after controlling for gender role attitudes and rape myth acceptance. Alcohol expectancies appear to be part of a network of beliefs and attitudes which perpetuate biased rape attributions and may be useful to challenge in altering rape perceptions.

Keywords

alcohol alcohol expectancy rape attribution blame

Alcohol plays an important role in the antecedents, consequences, and perceptions of sexual violence. Importantly, rape attribution research has demonstrated that assaults that involve alcohol use lead to more lenient evaluations of perpetrators and more negative evaluations of victims compared to when no alcohol is consumed (see Grubb & Turner, 2012, for a review). Such perceptions likely underpin negative reactions and responses to rape in individual interactions with victims (e.g., rape disclosure), the criminal justice context (e.g., jury-decision making), and open forum discussions about alcohol-involved sexual violence (e.g., via social media). These reactions may be detrimental to victims’ recovery and help-seeking decisions (e.g., Ahrens, 2006; Orchowski, Untied, & Gidycz, 2013).

Theoretical explanations for people’s biased rape perceptions have been linked to traditional and hostile attitudes relating to men and women’s gender roles and acceptance of cultural myths about sexual violence (Grubb & Turner, 2012). People who adhere to Western conceptualizations of traditional gender roles and believe that men and women have different work, domestic, and social roles are less sensitive to issues regarding sexual violence, especially when the victim is violating traditional gender norms (e.g., Harrison, Howerton, Secarea, & Nguyen, 2008). Many victim characteristics that affect people’s rape attributions can be conceptualized as violations of traditional femininity (e.g., intoxication, promiscuity, provocative clothing, etc.; Pollard, 1992). There is increasing consensus that traditional gender role attitudes are more important than biological sex in explaining people’s perceptions of rape (see, for example, Angelone, Mitchell, & Lucente, 2012).

Similarly, the adherence to cultural misperceptions about rape that serve to trivialize and justify sexual violence against women (e.g., Payne, Lonsway, & Fitzgerald, 1999), such as the belief that women often lie about rape or that rape happens because of a man’s inability to control his sexual urges, perpetuates sexual aggression and public attitudes toward sexual perpetrators and their victims. In the social psychological rape-perception literature, there is robust support for the role of individuals’ traditional gender role conformity and rape myth acceptance in accounting for people’s exoneration of rape perpetration and victim blaming (Grubb & Turner, 2012).

However, in addition to holding beliefs about men and women’s social roles and sexual violence, people hold comprehensive belief systems about alcohol use and its effects on cognition, emotion, and behavior. Beliefs about alcohol’s effects—or alcohol expectancies (Goldman, Del Boca, & Darkes, 1999)—are important predictors of people’s alcohol use, misuse, and dependence (e.g., Pabst, Kraus, Piontek, Mueller, & Demmel, 2014). Increased aggression and enhanced sexuality are commonly expected effects of drinking (e.g., Fromme, Stroot, & Kaplan, 1993). Alcohol expectancies also influence people’s interpretations of alcohol-related information in their sober as well as intoxicated state (Friedman, McCarthy, Bartholow, & Hicks, 2007; Norris, Davis, George, Martell, & Heiman, 2002). Attributions for alcohol-involved sexual violence may be determined by people’s attitudes regarding gender and sexual violence as well as their beliefs about alcohol’s role in facilitating aggression and exposing individuals to risks and vulnerabilities.

The alcohol expectancy literature is gradually shifting to focusing on the nature of expectancies as cue-dependent (expectancy domains are differentially activated in response to specific cues) and context-specific (e.g., Read & Curtin, 2007). This acknowledgment has led to more refined and purpose-specific alcohol expectancy measures, such as the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (Vik, Islam-Zwart, & Ruge, 2008) and Sexual Expectancies Regarding Sex, Aggression, and Sexual Vulnerability (Abbey, McAuslan, Ross, & Zawacki, 1999), which were both developed for the purpose of examining moderators of risks for and consequences of sexual assault experiences.

Alcohol expectancies are conceptualized as memory structures developed via vicarious and direct experience with alcohol that are activated in response to alcohol-related priming (Reich, Goldman, & Noll, 2004). Given that social learning plays an important role in the development of alcohol expectancies (Goldman et al., 1999), non-drinkers also hold beliefs about alcohol’s effects. Alcohol expectancies are thought to affect people’s social cognition even without any direct experience of drinking alcohol and when in a sober state. As such, we reasoned that these beliefs may impact on observers’ perceptions of depicted events that involve alcohol as they serve as alcohol-related primes. We developed the Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire (DESV-Q; Starfelt, Young, White, & Palk, 2014) to identify people’s context-specific alcohol expectancies relevant to the perception of sexual aggression and victimization. Items were constructed based on focus groups and interviews with young adults using a rape vignette method to prompt relevant alcohol-related beliefs. The measure assesses alcohol expectancies in terms of the targets self, men, and women and domains relate to increased/enhanced sexual coercion, sexual vulnerability, confidence, self-centeredness, and negative cognitive and behavioral changes. Whereas the development of the domains of sexual coercion and vulnerability in the DESV-Q were mainly theoretically driven (e.g., Abbey et al., 1999), the domains of confidence, self-centeredness, and negative cognitive and behavioral changes captured young adults’ reasoning about how alcohol increases risks for sexual coercion and results in sexual vulnerability.

There is little acknowledgment of the role of alcohol expectancies in the rape-perception literature although there is evidence to suggest that they are important to judgments of rape (e.g., Abbey, Buck, Zawacki, & Saenz, 2003; Norris et al., 2002). However, in studies examining the influence of alcohol expectancies on these judgments, expectancies have only been measured with the target self (e.g., “When drinking alcohol, I am likely to initiate sex”) with an emphasis on general (rather than specific) expectancy domains. In addition, no measure has assessed the belief that alcohol increases sexual aggression or coercion specifically, although most measures include a domain relating to general aggression. Thus, a context-specific alcohol expectancy measure, such as the DESV-Q, may be more sensitive in elucidating the role of alcohol expectancies in rape perceptions.

This study represents an initial investigation of the role of context-specific alcohol expectancies in young adults’ rape attributions. The study focused on the theoretically driven DESV-Q domains of sexual coercion and vulnerability. Given that the role of expectancies in the rape-perception literature is yet to be established, we drew on broader attribution and sexual violence research to narrow the focus on the beliefs which may be most relevant to rape perceptions. The role of specific sex- and aggression-related expectancies has received most support in research examining people’s risks for and experiences of sexual violence (e.g., Abbey et al., 2003; Abbey, Wegner, Pierce, & Jacques-Tiura, 2012). Sexual vulnerability expectancies are also considered important to understand men’s sexual aggression (Abbey et al., 1999). As such, an important first step to examine the role of expectancies in rape perceptions may be to focus on similar, context-specific domains.

Using a vignette method, we hypothesized that young adults with stronger expectancies that alcohol increases sexual coercion and sexual vulnerability would rate an intoxicated sexual perpetrator as less blameworthy for rape. It was predicted also that young adults who endorse these expectancies more strongly would rate an intoxicated victim as more blameworthy. The main objective of this study was to identify those specific expectancies that are most important in understanding people’s rape attributions and whether those expectancies pertain to the self or men and women in general. Given that other-oriented expectancies are endorsed to a larger extent than self-oriented expectancies (e.g., Abbey et al., 1999) and, arguably, more relevant to the evaluation of others under the influence of alcohol, we examined whether other-oriented alcohol expectancies explain unique variance in rape attributions over and above self-oriented expectancies. To provide a more stringent test of the hypotheses and examine whether the effects of any alcohol expectancies were robust, in a secondary set of analyses, participants’ traditional gender role endorsement and rape myth acceptance were statistically controlled for given their evidenced influence on rape perceptions.

Method

The sample comprised 210 men (34.9%) and women between 18 and 25 years (M = 20 years, SD = 1.8) recruited via online announcements directed at university students at a large university in Brisbane, Australia, and via snowball sampling and letter box drops of recruitment flyers to obtain a representation of general community members. Most participants were university students (67.6%), were single (54.8%), self-identified as being of an Australian or New Zealand background (80.8%), and spoke English as a first language (89%). The majority of participants (59%) drank alcohol at least twice monthly. Participants most often reported drinking three or four drinks on any typical occasion (27.4%) with about 1 in 4 (26.4%) reporting binge drinking (> 6 drinks) on any typical occasion.

Materials

Scenario

The written scenario was developed by the authors and has been used in a previous qualitative study (Starfelt, Young, Palk, & White, 2014). The scenario depicts a man, “Michael,” and woman, “Jessica,” meeting and getting acquainted at a party. They drink, dance, and flirt with each other before accompanying each other to a bedroom. Following initial consensual foreplay, Jessica verbally objects to Michael’s sexual advances (“She told Michael to stop”). Michael ignores Jessica’s non-consent and continues to have sex with her against her will. Although the scenario does not specify the number of alcoholic drinks consumed, both characters are described as experiencing intoxication (“Michael and Jessica had a lot of alcohol to drink that night, and were both feeling intoxicated”).

Scenario and character evaluations

After completing demographic information and reading the scenario, participants responded to a number of items relating to dimensions of blame separately for the perpetrator and victim and scenario evaluations. Perpetrator blame attributions were measured via seven items written by the authors. Informed by theoretical conceptualizations (Bradbury & Fincham, 1990; Cameron & Stritzke, 2003; Shaver, 1985) and qualitative findings from an earlier study (Starfelt, Young, Palk, & White, 2014), these items tapped subdimensions of preventability, accountability, choice, awareness of wrongdoing, intention, and liability (e.g., “Michael could have prevented what happened” [preventability]; “Michael knew right from wrong in this situation” [awareness of wrongdoing]). The same questions were then repeated for the victim. Perpetrator and victim blame measures were calculated by mean computation and were reliable (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), Cronbach’s Alphas, and Bivariate Correlations (Pearson’s r) for the Study’s Control Measures and Predictor and Dependent Variables (n = 175).

	M (SD)	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. SRQ-GL^a	3.07 (1.12)	.90^b
2. IRMAS-SF	2.15 (0.89)	.43***	.90^b
3. DESV-Q-S, SexCoerc	2.13 (0.85)	.36***	.34***	.75^b
4. DESV-Q-S, SexVul	2.39 (0.97)	.18*	.19*	.55***	.78^b
5. DESV-Q-M, SexCoerc	3.54 (0.84)	.22**	.21**	.37***	.37***	.78^b
6. DESV-Q-M, SexVul	2.78 (0.90)	.01	.17*	.31***	.38***	.37***	.79^b
7. DESV-Q-W, SexCoerc	2.99 (0.72)	.15*	.32***	.37***	.30***	.43***	.53***	.68^b
8. DESV-Q-W, SexVul	3.55 (0.83)	.16*	.23**	.33***	.41***	.62***	.43***	.47***	.71^b
9. Perpetrator blame	5.58 (0.90)	−.10	−.33***	−.26***	−.18*	−.15*	−.16*	−.25**	−.20**	.82^b
10. Victim blame	3.79 (1.10)	.28***	.46***	.14	.07	.16*	.19*	.39***	.26***	−.16*	.83^b

Note. SRQ-GL = Social Roles Questionnaire, Gender Linked subscale; IRMAS-SF = Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale–Short Form; DESV-Q-S = Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire, Target Self; SexCoerc = sexual coercion; SexVul = sexual vulnerability; DESV-Q-M = Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire, Target Men; DESV-Q-W = Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire, Target Women.

Due to a bimodal distribution, scores for this measure were divided into “high” and “low” endorsers through a median split. The correlations shown are based on the dichotomized measure.

Cronbach’s alpha.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

To ensure that participants perceived the characters as intoxicated, they rated Michael’s and Jessica’s level of intoxication on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = completely sober; 5 = extremely intoxicated). Furthermore, to assess the ecological validity of the scenario, participants indicated their agreement to three statements with regards to the incident constituting “rape.” Two of these items were adapted from Krahé, Temkin, Bieneck, and Berger (2008) and assessed participants’ agreement that the scenario meets the legal definition of and that the perpetrator ought to be criminally liable for rape. A third item assessed participants’ personal belief that the scenario qualified as rape. Responses were indicated on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all/I strongly believe that it is not rape; 7 = very much/I strongly believe that it is rape).

Alcohol expectancies

The DESV-Q (Starfelt, Young, White, & Palk, 2014) measures people’s beliefs about the effects of alcohol for the targets self, men, and women on cognitions and behaviors that are relevant to perceived risks for sexual perpetration and victimization. The DESV-Q includes the five subscales of Sexual Coercion (3 items), Sexual Vulnerability (3 items), Confidence (4 items), Self-Centeredness (3 items), and Negative Cognitive and Behavioral Changes (9 items). In this study, we used the two subscales Sexual Coercion (e.g., “Drinking alcohol makes me/men/women more likely to be forceful to get sex”) and Sexual Vulnerability (e.g., “Drinking alcohol makes me/men/women likely to have sex against my/their will”) which were considered highly relevant to the perception of sexual perpetrators and their victims. Participants rated their agreement with statements about alcohol’s effects on their and others’ (men and women) sexual coercion and sexual vulnerability on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). The authors developed and validated the measure with a student and general population sample of young adults and demonstrated that the measure was reliable (α_range = .77-.85) and discriminated from established general and context-specific alcohol expectancy measures. In this study, the subscales were calculated by mean computation and were reliable, although the Sexual Coercion subscale for target women had a somewhat low alpha (see Table 1).

Gender role attitudes

Traditional gender role attitudes were assessed by the 8-item Gender Linked (GL) subscale of the Social Roles Questionnaire (SRQ; Baber & Tucker, 2006). The SRQ uses a percentage scale (0% = strongly disagree; 100% = strongly agree) for respondents to rate their agreement with statements about the social roles of both men and women (e.g., “A father’s major responsibility is to provide financially for his children”). However, due to a technical error, in this study, level of agreement was measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). Although assessing the same attitudes (traditional gender role endorsement) in a similar way (level of agreement with equal anchors), SRQ-GL scores in this study cannot be compared with those of other studies. Baber and Tucker reported an acceptable Cronbach’s alpha for the subscale (α = .77). A scale score was calculated via mean computation and Cronbach’s alpha was high in this study (see Table 1).

Rape myth acceptance

The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale–Short Form (IRMAS-SF; Payne et al., 1999) is a 20-item measure assessing the endorsement of myths in the context of rape (e.g., “If a woman is raped while she is drunk, she is at least somewhat responsible for letting things get out of control”). The scale includes three negatively worded filler items to control for response set and responses are indicated on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all agree; 7 = very much agree). Payne et al. (1999) reported a Cronbach’s alpha of .87 for the short form of the scale. A composite score was calculated by mean computation and the measure was reliable (see Table 1).

Procedure

Ethics approval was obtained via the university’s Human Research Ethics Committee. Prospective participants were invited to complete a 25-min online survey about “alcohol’s role in social and sexual behaviors” and were provided with study information via emails, recruitment flyers, and online announcements that included the link to the survey webpage. The webpage included detailed information about the study and warned participants about the potentially sensitive nature of the survey materials. To avoid priming of the term rape, the scenario was described as a portrayal of an “unwanted sexual experience” and the rape myth acceptance measure was placed last, given the repeated reference to rape. The order of the measures was the same for all participants but the alcohol expectancy subscales and items within all measures were randomized. Before and at the completion of the survey, participants were provided with contact details to sexual assault and substance abuse service centers. Participants were given research credit (when eligible) or offered to enter a prize draw to win one of two shopping vouchers of the value of AUD$100.

Results

The ratings of the characters’ perceived intoxication revealed that some participants did not perceive the perpetrator and/or victim as intoxicated (rating < 3 on a 5-point Likert-type scale). To maximize the likelihood that alcohol expectancies were activated in response to the rape portrayal, these cases (n = 10) were removed from the data set along with cases with missing entries for these items (n = 25) resulting in a final sample of 175 participants. Even after removing these cases, the perpetrator (M = 3.84, SD = .57) was perceived as significantly more intoxicated than the victim (M = 3.66, SD = .57), t(174) = 3.42, p = .001.

Participants indicated a strong personal belief that the portrayed assault constituted rape (M = 6.12, SD = 1.08) but were somewhat less certain that the assault met the legal definition of (M = 5.63, SD = 1.51), and that the perpetrator should be held criminally liable for (M = 5.53, SD = 1.34), rape. These ratings indicate that participants’ blame attributions were made while acknowledging the label of rape.

Missing values for the predictor, control, and dependent variable items were less than 1.5% and were imputed via the Estimation Maximization logarithm prior to scale score calculations. The data revealed no severe deviations from normality with the exception of the GL subscale of the SRQ. This subscale showed a bimodal distribution and, therefore, a median split was applied to divide the sample into “low” and “high” endorsers of traditional gender roles. No influential outliers were identified.

Descriptive statistics and correlations for the study’s control measures, predictors, and dependent variables are presented in Table 1. There were no apparent multi-collinearity issues (i.e., correlations were less than .80; Field, 2009), given that the strongest correlation between predictors was .62. However, because some correlations were strong, preliminary regressions were conducted to check collinearity diagnostics (Variance Inflation Factor, Tolerance, Conditioning Index, and Variance Proportions) which confirmed that multi-collinearity was not an issue.

To test the hypotheses that alcohol expectancies predict rape attributions, a series of hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted on the multi-item blame measures. The self-oriented alcohol expectancy subscales were entered in Step 1 and other-oriented expectancies (men and women) were entered in Step 2. In a subsequent set of analyses, to provide a secondary, more stringent test of the hypotheses, participants’ gender role attitudes and rape myth acceptance were controlled for and their respective measures (SRQ-GL, IRMAS-SF) were then entered in Step 1 of the regressions. Coefficient statistics for all regressions are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Coefficient Statistics in Primary and Secondary Regressions to Predict Perpetrator and Victim Blame (n = 175).

Step	Predictors	Perpetrator Blame					Victim Blame
Step	Predictors	b	SE b	β	t	p	b	SE b	β	t	p
1	DESV-Q-S, SexCoerc	−.25	.09	−.24	−2.68	.008	.18	.12	.14	1.57	.12
1	DESV-Q-S, SexVul	−.05	.08	−.05	−0.57	.57	−.01	.10	−.01	−0.10	.92
2	DESV-Q-S, SexCoerc	−.20	.10	−.19	−2.06	.04	.04	.11	.03	0.33	.74
	DESV-Q-S, SexVul	−.01	.09	−.01	−0.11	.91	−.10	.10	−.09	−1.04	.30
	DESV-Q-M, SexCoerc	.04	.10	.04	.43	.67	−.09	.12	−.07	−0.70	.48
	DESV-Q-M, SexVul	.01	.09	.01	0.06	.95	−.05	.11	−.04	−0.42	.68
	DESV-Q-W, SexCoerc	−.19	.12	−.15	−1.62	.11	.57	.14	.38	4.21	<.001
	DESV-Q-W, SexVul	−.10	.11	−.09	−0.89	.38	.23	.13	.17	1.76	.08

1	SRQ-GL^a	.10	.14	.06	0.69	.49	.24	.16	.11	1.46	.15
1	IRMAS-SF	−.36	.08	−.35	−4.43	<.001	.51	.09	.41	5.53	<.001
2	SRQ-GL^a	.19	.15	.10	1.28	.20	.27	.17	.12	1.57	.12
	IRMAS-SF	−.31	.08	−.31	−3.80	<.001	.52	.09	.42	5.23	<.001
	DESV-Q-S, SexCoerc	−.18	.10	−.17	−1.85	.07	−.06	.11	−.05	−0.54	.59
	DESV-Q-S, SexVul	−.04	.08	−.05	−0.56	.58	−.01	.09	−.01	−0.10	.92
3	SRQ-GL^a	.18	.15	.10	1.18	.24	.32	.16	.14	1.94	.054
	IRMAS-SF	−.28	.08	−.28	−3.34	.001	.42	.09	.34	4.56	<.001
	DESV-Q-S, SexCoerc	−.16	.10	−.15	−1.56	.12	−.15	.11	−.11	−1.36	.18
	DESV-Q-S, SexVul	−.02	.08	−.02	−0.21	.83	−.09	.09	−.08	−0.96	.34
	DESV-Q-M, SexCoerc	.03	.10	.03	0.33	.74	−.11	.11	−.08	−0.98	.33
	DESV-Q-M, SexVul	.01	.09	.01	0.08	.93	.01	.10	.01	0.10	.92
	DESV-Q-W, SexCoerc	−.12	.12	−.10	−1.03	.31	.44	.13	.29	3.50	.001
	DESV-Q-W, SexVul	−.08	.11	−.07	−0.74	.46	.19	.12	.14	1.62	.11

Note. DESV-Q-S = Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire, Target Self; SexCoerc = sexual coercion; SexVul = sexual vulnerability; DESV-Q-M = Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire, Target Men; DESV-Q-W = Drinking Expectancy Sexual Vulnerabilities Questionnaire, Target Women; SRQ-GL = Social Roles Questionnaire, Gender Linked subscale; IRMAS-SF = Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale–Short Form.

Due to a bimodal distribution, scores for this measure were divided into “high” and “low” endorsers through a median split.

Perpetrator Blame

In the primary hierarchical regression, self-oriented expectancies explained a significant amount of variance in perpetrator blame attributions in Step 1, F(2, 172) = 6.53, p = .002, R = .27, R² = .07, adjusted R² = .06. Sexual coercion, but not sexual vulnerability, expectancy uniquely predicted perpetrator blame. Believing that alcohol increases one’s own sexually coercive behavior was associated with blaming the portrayed perpetrator less for his sexual coercion. Contrary to expectations, other-oriented expectancies did not add significantly to the model in Step 2, ΔF(4, 168) = 1.34, p = .26, ΔR = .05, ΔR² = .03. However, sexual coercion expectancy for the target self remained a unique predictor.

A secondary hierarchical regression was conducted to examine whether the effects remained after controlling for participants’ gender role attitudes and rape myth acceptance. The control measures explained a significant amount of variance in perpetrator blame in Step 1, F(2, 172) = 10.67, p < .001, R = .33, R² = .11, adjusted R² = .10. Rape myth acceptance, but not gender role attitudes, uniquely predicted perpetrator blame. Higher endorsement of rape myths was associated with lower ratings of perpetrator blame. In Step 2, self-oriented expectancies added significantly to the model, ΔF(2, 170) = 3.26, p = .04, ΔR = .05, ΔR² = .03; however, sexual coercion expectancy for target self was no longer a unique predictor. Other-oriented expectancies did not add significantly to the model in Step 3, ΔF(4, 166) = .61, p = .66, ΔR = .02, ΔR² = .01. The only unique predictor in this final step was rape myth acceptance.

Victim Blame

The primary analysis revealed that self-oriented expectancies did not predict victim blame in Step 1, F(2, 172) = 1.66, p = .19, R = .14, R² = .02, adjusted R² = .01. However, as expected, other-oriented expectancies added significantly to the model in Step 2, ΔF(4, 168) = 7.84, p < .001, ΔR = .28, ΔR² = .15. Sexual coercion expectancy for target women was a unique predictor in the model. Believing that women become more sexually coercive from drinking was associated with higher blame attributed to the portrayed rape victim.

In the secondary regression, the control measures gender role attitudes and rape myth acceptance explained a significant amount of variance in victim blaming in Step 1, F(2, 172) = 24.22, p < .001, R = .47, R² = .22, adjusted R² = .21. Rape myth acceptance, but not gender role attitudes, was a unique predictor. Higher rape myth acceptance was associated with greater victim blame. Self-oriented expectancies did not add significantly to the model in Step 2, ΔF(2, 170) = .24, p = .78, ΔR < .01, ΔR² < .01. However, as predicted, other-oriented expectancies explained a significant amount of variance in victim blaming over and above gender role attitudes, rape myth acceptance, and self-oriented expectancies in Step 3, ΔF(4, 166) = 5.76, p < .001, ΔR = .09, ΔR² = .10. In this final step, rape myth acceptance and sexual coercion expectancies for target women uniquely predicted victim blame.

Discussion

This study represents an initial examination of the role of sexual coercion and vulnerability alcohol expectancies in young adults’ perpetrator and victim blame attributions. A new measure which was developed for the specific purpose of rape-perception research—the DESV-Q (Starfelt, Young, White, & Palk, 2014) —was used to explicate the impact of context-specific alcohol expectancies. It was hypothesized that greater alcohol expectancy endorsement would result in lesser and greater perpetrator and victim blame, respectively. This hypothesis was supported. Based on the argument that other-oriented expectancies are more powerful and more relevant to the perception of others’ behaviors, we examined also whether these expectancies would explain rape attributions over and above self-oriented expectancies. This argument was supported for attributions of victim blame but not for perpetrator blame. Finally, to examine whether the influence of any alcohol expectancy endorsements was robust, gender role attitudes and rape myth acceptance were statistically controlled for. The influence of self-oriented expectancies (as a group) on perpetrator blame and other-oriented expectancies on victim blame were robust and explained additional variance over and above participants’ general beliefs and attitudes about gender and rape. Although no predictions could be made in terms of the relative importance of the different expectancy domains, sexual coercion, but not sexual vulnerability expectancy, was consistently found to be a unique predictor.

As Littleton (2011) notes, there is a need to think beyond the standard attitudinal construct of rape myth acceptance in attempting to understand a culture that perpetuates sexual aggression and public perceptions of sexual violence. Based on this study’s findings, at an individual level of analysis, sexual coercion alcohol expectancy appear to represent an important sociocognitive concept in explaining why people excuse intoxicated sexual perpetrators while blaming intoxicated victims (Grubb & Turner, 2012). However, when taking broader attitudes about gender and sexual violence into account, this expectancy remained a unique predictor only of victim blame (although self-oriented expectancies as a group explained additional variance in perpetrator blame over and above traditional gender roles and rape myth acceptance). Expectancies appear to be intertwined with a larger and more complex network of beliefs and attitudes that, at large, are problematic, and should be targeted in parallel.

Alcohol expectancies only explained a small amount of variance in perpetrator blame (adjusted R² = .06), although the effect size increased notably by the inclusion of gender role attitudes and rape myth acceptance (to adjusted R² = .12). Rape-perception researchers that examine the role of beliefs and attitudes often report small to moderate effect sizes (e.g., Angelone et al., 2012); however, it should nevertheless be emphasized that there are multiple other factors that impact on these evaluations. For victim blame, sexual coercion expectancy was a unique and robust predictor which also contributed to the moderate and large effect sizes of the preliminary and secondary regression models (adjusted R² = .14 and .28), respectively. These findings suggest that victim attributions are guided, to a larger extent, by beliefs and attitudes about alcohol and rape whereas factors beyond these beliefs systems (e.g., knowledge of an offender’s motivation and the type of coercive strategy; Angelone et al., 2012; Russell, Oswald, & Kraus, 2011) may be critical in explaining how individuals perceive perpetrators.

Although inconsistent with our a priori argument, importantly, self- and other-oriented expectancies played a differential role in perpetrator and victim blame. Whereas believing that drinking alcohol increases one’s own sexual coercion was associated with blaming the perpetrator less, believing that women become sexually coercive from drinking led to greater victim blaming. The former finding suggests that the association between self-oriented sexual coercion expectancies and evaluations of the perpetrator may reflect blame avoidance as a form of defensive attribution (see, for example, Workman & Freeburg, 1999) while the latter may be intertwined with cultural norms relating to women’s drinking (restrained behavior is expected of women; de Visser & McDonnell, 2012). Overall, this study lends credence to the argument that different cognitive processes underpin attributions for sexual perpetration and victimization (e.g., Cameron & Stritzke, 2003).

Limitations and Future Directions

We acknowledge some limitations with this study as well as the strategies to address these limitations in future research. First, given that biological sex is related but seen as secondary to gender role attitudes (e.g., Angelone et al., 2012), we controlled for gender role attitudes rather than participant sex. Nonetheless, given that different motivations may explain the influence of self-oriented sexual coercion expectancies on perpetrator blame for men and women, potential sex differences (rather than gender role attitudes) could be explored in future research.

Second, given that self-oriented sexual coercion and vulnerability expectancies may be obscured by social desirability (Starfelt, Young, White, & Palk, 2014), it is important to control for such influences in future studies. A social desirability measure was not included in this study to limit survey length and, therefore, it is acknowledged that the impact of self-oriented expectancies may have been underestimated. Further to this limitation, we focused only on the theoretically important Sexual Coercion and Sexual Vulnerability expectancy subscales of the DESV-Q and, as such, there is opportunity for future research to examine the remaining domains and their relative importance in rape attributions. Future research could compare the relative impact of the remaining domains with a focus on either self- or other-oriented expectancies.

Third, we acknowledge some issues with the assessment of gender role attitudes which may have resulted in a less sensitive measure. We argue, however, that construct validity remained unaffected. In addition, using a relatively “old” rape myth acceptance (Payne et al., 1999) measure may have underestimated the impact of more subtle (modern) myths about rape (e.g., Gerger, Kley, Bohner, & Siebler, 2007). Finally, the victim was perceived as less intoxicated than the perpetrator which may have led to an underestimated effect of alcohol expectancies on victim blame. Despite this limitation, the effect of sexual coercion expectancies on victim blame was robust.

Conclusion

In summary, this study demonstrated that people’s beliefs about alcohol’s effect on their own and women’s sexually coercive behaviors play a role in rape attributions. It is important to note that people’s beliefs about alcohol do not necessarily correspond with alcohol’s actual effects on emotion, cognition, and behavior. Alcohol increases risks for sexual coercion for reasons extending beyond pharmacology (e.g., exposure to high-risk situations, self-fulfillment of alcohol expectancies). Alcohol’s myopic effects, which relate to the impairment of the intoxicated person’s information-processing of inhibitory cues (Steele & Joseph, 1990), most likely interact with situational factors and personal beliefs and attitudes to determine who is at risk of becoming sexually coercive under the influence of alcohol.

It is vital to address individual beliefs and attitudes about alcohol as well as sexual violence as they likely underpin people’s social reaction to rape and rape victims. Ultimately, these reactions may affect victims’ recovery, help-seeking, and reporting (e.g., Ahrens, 2006), with wide-ranging effects in terms of the official statistics that feeds the public understanding of sexual violence. To reduce the impact of the beliefs identified in this study, it may be useful to develop effective means of challenging sexual coercion alcohol expectancies to counteract people’s excuses for intoxicated sexual aggression and victim blaming.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Louise C. Starfelt is currently enrolled in a PhD program in social psychology at the Queensland University of Technology, exploring the impact of alcohol intoxication and expectancies on perceptions of sexual violence. Her research interests include attributions and perceptions of crime with a particular focus on sexual violence.

Ross McD. Young is a clinical psychologist and the executive dean of the Faculty of Health at the Queensland University of Technology. He has research interests in the psychological and biological factors contributing to substance misuse, and major psychiatric illness, such as schizophrenia.

Katherine M. White is a social psychologist at the Queensland University of Technology. Her main interest is in attitude-behavior relations. Her other research interests include the role of group norms in influencing people’s behavior from a social identity theory perspective.

Gavan R. M. Palk is a Barrister-at-Law and a lecturer in the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety at the Queensland University of Technology. His research interests include drink driving, recidivism, cost-effectiveness of rehabilitation programs, aggression, and the law and Indigenous issues.

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