Myths Concerning Sexual Violence Toward Women in Poland,Hungary,and Norway in the Context of System Justification Theory: The Role of Beliefs in the Biological Origins of Gender Differences and Ambivalent Sexism

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes toward rape in Poland, Hungary, and Norway. Based on system justification theory, we examined whether country of origin predicts levels of rape myth acceptance, beliefs in the biological origins of gender differences, and ambivalent sexism. There is also some evidence that beliefs in the biological origins of gender differences predict rape myth among Polish students and that this relationship is mediated by hostile sexism. The current study aimed to test whether this model can be applied to other countries. Participants (N = 266) were from Poland, Hungary, and Norway. The study was conducted online. The dependent and independent variables were measured with questionnaires. Polish participants had significantly higher levels of rape myth acceptance, beliefs in the biological origins of gender differences, and ambivalent sexism than Norwegian and Hungarian participants. Our proposed model was confirmed: belief in the biological origins of gender differences was associated with rape myth acceptance, with hostile sexism as a mediator. Benevolent sexism also turned out to be a mediator between beliefs in the biological origins of gender differences and rape myth acceptance. The mediational model of the relationship between beliefs in the biological origins of gender differences and rape myth acceptance can be applied to all three countries. This result suggests that anti-rape educational interventions should take into account the role of culture and society in the construction of gender differences.

Keywords

rape myth acceptance rape myths gender essentialism beliefs in the biological origins of gender differences ambivalent sexism

Rape is a pervasive social problem—there is evidence that as many as 20% of women may experience it at some point in their life (Grabowska & Rawłuszko, 2016; Smith et al., 2017). There are various misconceptions concerning rape. According to Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2016), even 27% of people living in the European Union (EU) believe that non-consensual sex can be justified in some circumstances, such as being drunk or on drugs (12%), voluntarily going home with someone (11%), or wearing revealing, provocative, or sexy clothing (10%). Moreover, 31% believe that it is more likely to be raped by a stranger than by an acquaintance, which is in stark contrast to actual statistics (e.g., Smith et al., 2017). Such misconceptions concerning rape, its perpetrators, and survivors are known as rape myths, and the level of endorsement of these myths is known as rape myth acceptance (Burt, 1980; Gerger et al., 2007; McMahon & Farmer, 2011).

Cross-National Differences in Attitudes Toward Sexual Violence

According to EUROSTAT (2021), 45.24 per 100,000 people reported rape in 2018 in Norway, 2.01 in Poland, and 5.53 in Hungary. Nonetheless, due to the systematic under-reporting of rape (e.g., Fundamental Rights Agency, 2014), indices of reported rape cases do not reflect the full scope of this problem. Rape myths may also play a role here—there is some evidence of a negative correlation between rape myth acceptance in rape victims and the willingness to report rape to the police (Egan & Wilson, 2012; Heath et al., 2013).

There are also vast differences in the endorsement of rape myths between European countries. For example, results of the Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2016) showed that as many as 57% of Czech people believe it is more likely that one is raped by a stranger than by a non-stranger, whereas in Sweden only 14% believe this statement to be true. In order to better understand the phenomenon of rape myth acceptance, it is necessary to better understand the origins of these differences and see how they vary between countries, which is the purpose of our study.

There is some evidence that gender role traditionality and hostile sexism play a role in cross-cultural differences in attitudes toward rape (Hill & Marshall, 2018; Obierefu & Ojedokun, 2017; Yamawaki & Tschanz, 2005); nevertheless, our knowledge and understanding of the underlying causes of these cross-cultural differences is still scant. We approach this problem using system justification theory.

Rape Myths and System Justification Theory

Rape myths are a kind of stereotypes—according to Burt (1980, p. 217), they are prejudicial, stereotyped, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims, and rapists. According to system justification theory, stereotypes and prejudice are a way to support the belief that the existing social order is fair (Jost & Banaji, 1994). There is some evidence of correlation between system justification (i.e., perceiving the social system as fair and just) and rape myth acceptance (Chapleau & Oswald, 2014; Papp & Erchull, 2017). Yodanis (2004), in a comparison of data from 27 European countries, demonstrated that rates of sexual violence are negatively predicted by the occupational and educational status of women. This result suggests that sexual violence is closely related to the social system.

The belief that gender differences have a primarily biological origin may be related both to rape myth acceptance and system justification. This belief is an inherent part of gender essentialism—the belief that the categories men and women are defined by essences (i.e., inherent properties which are deeper than their surface attributes; Medin & Ortony, 1989). Gender essentialism has a similar function to system justification—it facilitates endorsement of the existing social order. There is some evidence of a link between gender essentialism and system justification (Kray et al., 2017; Morton et al., 2009; Studzińska & Wojciszke, 2014). According to Wilton et al. (2018), exposure to information about the social origins of gender differences has the opposite effect—it increases the endorsement of women’s and transgender people’s rights.

Rape Myths, Gender Essentialism, and Sexism

Many studies suggest a link between sexism and stereotypical beliefs about rape (Abrams et al., 2003; Angelone et al., 2020; Chapleau et al., 2007; Cohn et al., 2009; Gerger et al., 2007; Persson et al., 2018; Poerwandari et al., 2019; Rebeiz & Harb, 2010; Sakallı-Uğurlu et al., 2007; Ståhl et al., 2010). Ambivalent sexism theory posits that there are two aspects of sexism: hostile sexism, based on negative attitudes toward women, and benevolent sexism, based on seemingly positive attitudes toward women (e.g., perceiving them as more moral than men; Glick & Fiske, 1996). Both kinds of sexism constitute the belief that men and women inherently differ, but are ambiguous about the source of these differences. Nonetheless, there is some evidence of a link between biological gender essentialism and ambivalent sexism (Keller, 2005; Studzińska & Wojciszke, 2014), as well as other gender-related stereotypes and prejudices, for example lack of support for women’s rights (Skewes et al., 2018; Studzińska & Wojciszke, 2014; Wilton et al., 2018), negative attitudes toward counter-stereotypical election candidates (Swigger & Meyer, 2018), transphobia (Broussard & Warner, 2018; Ching & Xu, 2018; Wilton et al., 2018), perceiving same-gender parenting as unnatural and harmful for children (Pacilli et al., 2017), and rape myth acceptance, which is particularly important in the context of the current study (Łyś et al., 2021a, 2021b Łyś et al., 2021c). These results suggest that sexist beliefs may be rooted in gender essentialist beliefs. Thus we tested a mediational model: we investigated whether beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences predict hostile sexism and whether, in-line with previous studies (Angelone et al., 2020; Chapleau et al., 2007; Gerger et al., 2007; Rebeiz & Harb, 2010; Sakallı-Uğurlu et al., 2007), hostile sexism predicts rape myth acceptance. Our previous study (Łyś, et al., 2021c) demonstrated that this model can explain rape myth acceptance among Polish students.Nonetheless, in order to confirm this effect, it should be replicated on different samples (Pashler & Wagenmakers, 2012). In the current study, we intend to check whether this model is also applicable to two other European countries, namely Norway and Hungary.

Previous studies have demonstrated that hostile sexism is closely related to rape myth acceptance (Angelone et al., 2020; Chapleau et al., 2007; Gerger et al., 2007; Rebeiz & Harb, 2010; Sakallı-Uğurlu et al., 2007). The evidence is less clear for benevolent sexism. For example, Chapleau et al. (2007) demonstrated that protective paternalism, which is one of the subfactors of benevolent sexism, is negatively correlated with rape myth acceptance. Moreover, the relationship between benevolent sexism and rape victim blaming depends on the victim’s behavior—according to Masser et al. (2010), benevolent sexism and rape victim blaming are positively correlated only when the victim did not physically resist. Thus we decided to conduct exploratory analysis of benevolent sexism. No particular effect or relationship direction was expected.

Current Study

This project was approved by the Ethical Review Board at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Warsaw. The pre-registration and the tools used in this project are available at https://osf.io/9bf5q. In the current study, we decided to compare attitudes toward rape and their correlates in three countries differing in rank on the Gender Inequality Index (GII) (UNDP, 2018): Norway, Poland, and Hungary (ranked 5th, 30th, and 56th, respectively). The GII allows the comparison of countries in terms of gender inequality in reproductive health, empowerment, and the labor market. It takes into account numerous indicators of gender equality, such as the fractions of the female and male population with at least secondary education as well as female and male shares of parliamentary seats. The higher the rank, the more egalitarian the country. Thus, taking into consideration GII rank and the aforementioned link between sexual violence and social system, we hypothesized that Norway will have the lowest levels of rape myth acceptance, hostile sexism, and beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences, whereas Hungary will have the highest levels of these variables.

On the other hand, Polish people are more religious than Norwegians and Hungarians. In the 9th round of the European Social Survey (ESS, 2019), 87.3% of Polish participants declared belonging to some particular religion or denomination in comparison to 51.1% of Hungarian and 45.4% of Norwegian participants. Given the positive correlation between rape myth acceptance and religiosity (Barnett et al., 2016; Prina & Schatz-Stevens, 2019; Rebeiz & Harb, 2010), we decided to control for levels of religiosity.

We should also take into account that Norwegians endorse egalitarian gender roles to a greater extent than Poles and Hungarians (Boehnke, 2011). This also permits us to hypothesize that Norwegians will be less accepting of rape myths than Poles and Hungarians.

Hypotheses

The hypotheses are included in the pre-registration. In this article, we focus on the following hypotheses:

H1: The level of rape myth acceptance among Polish participants will be (a) higher than among Norwegian participants but (b) lower than among Hungarian participants.

H2: Rape myth acceptance will be positively predicted by beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences and this relationship will be mediated by hostile sexism.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Both men and women were recruited to the study. The survey was completed by 310 participants. For 10 participants, the completion time was shorter than 300 seconds (5 minutes). These participants were excluded as it seemed plausible that they had not paid sufficient attention to detail. We also excluded 34 participants who were not of Polish, Hungarian, or Norwegian origin. Most such participants filled in the Norwegian version of the survey; therefore, the Norwegian subsample was substantially smaller than the others. Thus, the final sample was N = 266 (Polish subsample: 36.8%, Hungarian subsample: 38.7%, and Norwegian subsample: 24.4%).

Men were 59.4% of the sample. Ages in the sample ranged from 17 to 81 (M = 31.84, SD = 11.48). The majority (54.5%) of the participants had higher education, 35.3% had secondary education, 4.5% had finished vocational school, and 5.6% had a primary school education. The study was conducted online using Qualtrics. Participants were recruited via Answeo (the Polish subsample) and Prolific Academic (the Norwegian and Hungarian subsamples). The questionnaires were presented to each participant in random order. Participants were given 1.5 GBP for participating.

Tools and Measures

Rape myth acceptance

We used the Polish (Debowska et al., 2015; Łyś et al., 2021a), Hungarian (Nyúl & Kende, 2021), and Norwegian (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017) versions of the Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Updated IRMA; McMahon & Farmer, 2011). Confirmatory factor analysis suggests that the tool has good construct validity (McMahon & Farmer, 2011). This questionnaire includes five groups of rape myths: She Asked For It—myths based on the assumption that the victim is somewhat responsible for the rape; He Didn’t Mean To—myths based on the assumption that rape is just the result of uncontrolled sexual drive; He Was Just Drunk—myths based on the assumption that alcohol use is a mitigating circumstance for the rape perpetrator; It Wasn’t Really Rape—myths based on the assumption that in some circumstances (e.g., when the victim did not physically resist) non-consensual sex is not rape; and She Lied—myths based on the assumption that false rape accusations are a widespread phenomenon. In our analyses, we included the 18 items that are present in all three versions. The items are on a 5-point Likert scale from “I totally disagree” to “I totally agree.” The internal consistencies in the current study were α = .91, α = .93, and α = .89 for the Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian subsamples, respectively.

Beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences

The Beliefs in Origins of Gender Differences Questionnaire (Studzińska & Wojciszke, 2014) consists of two subscales: beliefs in biological (e.g., All differences between men and women are created by nature) and in cultural (e.g., Men and women differ because they are raised in different ways) origins of differences between men and women. EFA suggests that the tool has good construct validity (Studzińska & Wojciszke, 2014). The tool consists of 13 items scored on a 7-point Likert-like scale from “I totally disagree” to “I totally agree.” The questionnaire was translated into Hungarian and Norwegian and back-translated. After back-translation, some minor changes were introduced. The internal consistencies of the biological origin subscale in the current study were α = .79, α = .83, and α = .85 for the Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian subsamples, respectively. The internal consistencies of the cultural origin subscale in the current study were α = .87, α = .89, and α = .83 for the Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian subsamples, respectively.

Ambivalent sexism

We used the Polish (Mikołajczak & Pietrzak, 2014), Hungarian (Szabó, 2008), and Norwegian (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017) versions of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996). The convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the scale has been confirmed (Glick & Fiske, 1996). We used the full 22-item version of the scale. The items are on a 5-point Likert scale from “I totally disagree” to “I totally agree.” Higher scores indicate higher levels of sexism. The scores are computed separately for hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. The Hungarian version did not contain one of the items (There are actually very few women who get a kick out of teasing men by seeming sexually available and then refusing male advances); therefore, we created this item using the same procedure as was used for the Hungarian version of the Beliefs in Origins of Gender Differences Questionnaire (see above). The hostile sexism subscale measures overt hostile beliefs about women (e.g., Women seek to gain power by getting control over men), and the benevolent sexism subscale measures apparently supportive attitudes toward women (e.g., A good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man). The internal consistencies of the hostile sexism subscale in the current study were α = .93, α = .94, and α = .92 for the Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian subsamples, respectively. The internal consistencies of the benevolent sexism subscale in the current study were α = .81, α = .90, and α = .89 for the Norwegian, Polish, and Hungarian subsamples, respectively.

Religiosity

We used the Hungarian, Polish, and Norwegian version of the ESS items concerning religiosity (ESS, 2019). The items included in ESS measure religious affiliation and the declared level of religiosity from 0 (not at all religious) to 10 (very religious).

Data Analysis Plan and Missing Data

Assuming that the effect size will be 0.25 and the power 0.80, the power analysis for ANOVA in G-Power suggested that N = 159 would be an adequate sample size. As for mediation, we computed the sample size with MedPower (Kenny, 2018). Assuming that the beta effect size for paths a and b will be .30 and for path c′ will be 20, the minimum sample size would be 185. The subsamples from the three countries did not differ significantly in the distribution of gender and education. However, Polish participants turned out to be significantly older (M = 34.17, SD = 12.53) than the Norwegian (M = 29.83, SD = 11.23) and Hungarian (M = 30.90, SD = 10.26) ones (F = 3.430, p = .034). Polish participants also turned out to be more religious (M = 4.29, SD = 2.80) than the Norwegian (M = 2.00, SD = 2.68) and Hungarian (M = 2.72, SD = 2.70) ones (F = 15.529, p < .001). Thus, we controlled for age and religiosity in our analyses.

Hypothesis 1 was tested with ANOVA in SPSS. The mediational model (hypothesis 2) was tested with model 4 in PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) using 5,000 bias-corrected, bootstrapped samples with Davidson-MacKinnon heteroskedasticity correction (Hayes & Cai, 2007). We used listwise deletion in each analysis. When conducting mediation, we used Cook’s distance (Larose, 2006) to detect potential outliers.

Results

Rape Myth Acceptance—Differences Between Countries

We checked whether the samples from the three countries differed in terms of rape myth acceptance. We conducted a series of one-way ANOVAs with the three groups. The results are presented in Table 1. F is the ratio of mean square values between groups and mean squares within groups. Partial η² is the ratio of the sum of squares between groups and the sum of squares between groups plus the sum of squares within groups. In contrast to the classical η², it is not affected by the inclusion of variables that introduce additional variance (Richardson, 2011). In order to compare means, we used NIR post hoc tests.

Table 1.

Rape Myth Acceptance—Differences Between Countries.

	Norway	Poland	Hungary	F	Partial η²
RMA (total)	37.08 (12.37)^c	45.40 (14.72)^a	41.80 (10.93)^b	8.29**	.06
SA	7.75 (3.44)^b	10.49 (4.26)^a	10.50 (3.82)^a	12.12**	.08
MT	7.66 (2.90)^c	9.90 (3.15)^a	8.62 (2.48)^b	12.67**	.09
JD	6.14 (2.51)^a	6.11 (3.00)^a	5.56 (2.29)^a	1.44	.01
NR	6.09 (2.63)^b	7.84 (3.45)^a	7.40 (2.86)^a	6.66*	.05
SL	9.43 (3.95)^b	11.06 (4.12)^a	9.71 (3.25)^b	4.78*	.04

Note. Supercripts “a” to “c” indicate post hoc results. Means that do not differ significantly from each other (p > .05) share superscripts; means that differ significantly from each other (p < 0.05) do not share superscripts. Superscript “a” denotes items with the highest means, superscript “b” denotes items with subsequent highest means, etc. RMA = rape myth acceptance; SA = she asked for it; MT = he didn’t mean to; JD = he was just drunk; NR = it wasn’t really rape; SL = she lied.

p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .001.

Polish participants had a higher general score of rape myth acceptance than did the Norwegian participants. On the She Asked For It and It Wasn’t Really Rape subscales, Polish and Hungarian participants did not differ significantly from each other, but they had a significantly higher score than Norwegian participants. Polish participants had a higher score on the He Didn’t Mean To subscale than did Hungarian and Norwegian ones. There were no significant differences between the Polish, Norwegian, and Hungarian participants on the He Was Just Drunk subscale.

Beliefs in the Biological Origin of Gender Differences and Ambivalent Sexism—Differences Between Countries

We also checked whether the samples from the three countries differed in terms of beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences and ambivalent sexism. We conducted a series of one-way ANOVAs with the three groups. We used NIR post hoc tests to compare the means. The results are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Beliefs in Origin of Gender Differences and Ambivalent Sexism—Differences Between Countries.

	Norway	Poland	Hungary	F	Partial η²
BO	25.22 (6.11)^b	29.21 (7.28)^a	27.03 (6.70)^b	7.02*	.05
CO	32.69 (7.94)^a	33.06 (8.59)^a	31.73 (6.76)^a	0.55	.01
HS	22.86 (11.97)^b	32.91 (12.45)^a	22.03 (11.00)^b	16.06**	.11
BS	16.88 (8.68)^c	30.01 (11.39)^a	25.63 (11.11)^b	29.77**	.19

Note. Superscripts “a” to “c” indicate post hoc results. Means that do not differ significantly from each other (p > .05) share superscripts; means that differ significantly from each other (p < .05) do not share subscripts. Superscript “a” denotes items with the highest means, superscript “b” denotes items with subsequent highest means, etc. BO = belief in biological origin of gender differences; CO = belief in cultural origin of gender differences; HS = hostile sexism; BS = benevolent sexism.

*p ≤ .05 **

p ≤ .001.

Polish participants had a higher level of beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences than their Norwegian counterparts. There were no significant differences in beliefs in the cultural origin of gender differences. Polish participants had a higher level of hostile sexism than their Norwegian counterparts. Polish participants had a higher level of benevolent sexism than Hungarian participants who, in turn, had higher levels of benevolent sexism than Norwegian participants.

Rape Myth Acceptance, Beliefs in the Biological Origin of Gender Differences, and Ambivalent Sexism—the Role of Differences in Age and Religiosity

In the subsequent analyses, we also compared rape myth acceptance, beliefs in the biological origins of gender differences, and ambivalent sexism among Polish, Hungarian, and Norwegian people using an ANOVA in SPSS, controlling for age and declared level of religiosity. The results are presented in Table 3.

Table 3.

Differences Between Countries in Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexism, and Beliefs in Origin of Gender Differences—Role of Age and Religiosity (F(2, 263)).

Dependent Variable	Origin		Age		Religiosity
Dependent Variable	F	Partial η²	F	Partial η²	F	Partial η²
RMA (sum)	4.363*	.03	1.681	.01	15.038**	.05
RMA-SA	9.058**	.07	1.359	.01	16.030**	.06
RMA-MT	9.471**	.07	0.002	.00	1.342	.01
RMA-JD	1.716	.01	1.398	.01	20.027**	.07
RMA-NR	3.974*	.03	1.506	.01	11.326**	.04
RMA-SL	2.929	.02	1.946	.01	5.123*	0.02
BO	3.445*	.03	1.246	.01	6.010*	.02
CO	1.760	.01	2.049	.01	6.797*	.03
HS	10.137**	.07	1.909	.01	12.450**	.05
BS	17.875**	.12	13.182**	.05	30.805**	.11

Note. RMA = rape myth acceptance; SA = she asked for it; MT = he didn’t mean to; JD = he was just drunk; NR = it wasn’t really rape; SL = she lied; BO = belief in biological origin of gender differences; CO = belief in cultural origin of gender differences; HS = hostile sexism; BS = benevolent sexism.

p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .001.

After taking into account age and religiosity, the differences between countries in rape myth acceptance, beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences, and ambivalent sexism were still significant. Age was a significant covariate of benevolent sexism toward women. Religiosity was a significant covariate of all the dependent variables apart from “He Didn’t Mean to” rape myth acceptance subscale.

Beliefs in the Biological Origin of Gender Differences and Rape Myth Acceptance—Sexism as a Mediator

Among our participants, belief in the biological origin of gender differences was significantly positively correlated with rape myth acceptance (r = .38, p < .001). It was also positively correlated with hostile sexism (r = .47, p < .001) and benevolent sexism (r = .36, p < .001).

Furthermore, we were interested in investigating whether hostile sexism and benevolent sexism may mediate between beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences and rape myth acceptance. In particular, we wanted to check whether the model was suitable for all three countries included in our study. We used model 4 in the Process macro (Hayes, 2013) with Davidson-MacKinnon’s heteroskedasticity correction (Hayes & Cai, 2007). We included country, age, and declared level of religiosity as covariates. The results are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Belief in biological origin of the differences between men and women and rape myth acceptance – the mediational role of sexism

Model 95%; bootstrapped samples = 5,000; Total CI: from 0.40 to 0.82. The standardized indirect effect was 0.23 (95% CI [0.15, 0.31]) and 0.05 (95% CI [0.01, 0.09]) for hostile and benevolent sexism, respectively. The unstandardized indirect effect was 0.43 (95% CI [0.28, 0.58]) and 0.09 (95% CI [0.03, 0.17]) for hostile and benevolent sexism, respectively. The indirect effects were significant whereas the direct effect was not—thus, the relationship between biological gender essentialism and rape myth acceptance was fully mediated by hostile and benevolent sexism.

Discussion

We set out to test two hypotheses concerning differences in rape myth acceptance and its correlates in three European countries: Poland, Hungary, and Norway. Hypothesis 1 was partially supported. The level of rape myth acceptance in Poland was not only higher compared to Norway but also compared to Hungary, as were the levels of ambivalent sexism and beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences. This would suggest that the GII (UNDP, 2018) is not always the best indicator of gender-related attitudes and beliefs. Subsequent studies should try to choose a more adequate indicator. Considering the link between rape myth acceptance and conservative worldviews (Barnett & Hilz, 2017; Giovannelli & Jackson 2013; Hantzi et al., 2015; Łyś et al., 2021a), levels of conservatism may be such an indicator. Given the link between religiosity and rape myth acceptance (Barnett et al., 2016; Prina & Schatz-Stevens, 2019; Rebeiz & Harb, 2010), levels of religiosity may also be such an indicator. Nonetheless, religiosity does not explain fully the cross-national differences—after taking it into account, cross-national differences were still significant.

The political situation in Poland (more specifically, the fact that the conservative Law and Justice is in power) may have played a role in our results. According to a longitudinal poll conducted by the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw, Polish people have started to endorse conservative (e.g., homophobic) beliefs more strongly between September 2018 and July 2019 (Górska et al., 2019). Given the link between rape myth acceptance and conservative worldviews (Barnett & Hilz, 2017; Giovannelli & Jackson 2013; Hantzi et al., 2015; Łyś et al., 2021a), we can assume that the prevalence of rape myths in society is related to the prevalence of other conservative ideas. The links between rape myth acceptance and racism, homophobia, ageism, classism, and religious intolerance (demonstrated by Aosved & Long, 2006) seem to support this explanation. However, this needs further exploration, for example, by comparing Poland, Hungary, and Norway in terms of various conservative beliefs. This result may be also related to the fact that Poles are more religious than Norwegians and Hungarians (ESS, 2019). Nonetheless, in the current study, even after taking into account the declared level of religiosity, the differences in rape myth acceptance between the countries were still significant. Thus, religiosity does not explain all the cross-national differences in rape myth acceptance.

Hypothesis 2 was supported. Beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences predicted hostile sexism and hostile sexism fully mediated the relationship between biological gender essentialism and rape myth acceptance. This demonstrates that the model tested previously on another Polish sample (Łyś et al., 2021c) can be also applied to Norwegian and Hungarian people. Finally, the relationship between biological gender essentialism and rape myth acceptance was also mediated by benevolent sexism. Thus, our study sheds light on the cultural background of attitudes toward rape—it demonstrates evidence of a link between beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences and rape myth acceptance, and it also shows the role of hostile and benevolent sexism as mediators between these two attitudes.

Limitations

The most important limitation of the current study is the fact that the subsamples were not representative of each country. More than half of the participants had higher education, which is higher than among the general population, as only about 40% of EU citizens aged 30 to 34 have completed tertiary education (EUROSTAT, 2020). Thus, a study on a more representative sample is needed and the size of area of residence (i.e., town, city, etc.) should also be taken into account.

An another important limitation is that although the results suggest some conclusions concerning the cross-cultural aspects of attitudes toward rape, the fact that data comes from only three countries means that it would be hasty to draw general conclusions. Thus, although our study suggests that the mediational model works in all three countries, a study including more countries is necessary. Moreover, Poland, Hungary, and Norway are all European countries inhabited predominantly by white people. Thus, it is necessary to include more ethnically and religiously diverse countries in subsequent studies.

The mediational model shows that belief in the biological origin of gender differences is a predictor of rape myth acceptance, nevertheless, the design of our study is merely cross-sectional; therefore, we cannot draw any conclusions about causality (Gelfand et al., 2009). Thus, it does not allow us to draw any cause-and-effect conclusions. There is some evidence that exposure to essentialist theories increases system justification in men (Kray et al., 2017) and acceptance of inequality in both men and women (Morton et al., 2009). In future studies, it would be worth examining the influence of exposure to essentialist content on beliefs about sexual violence. A longitudinal study, analyzed with a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (Hamaker et al., 2015), would also be helpful in testing the cause-and-effect relationships.

Another limitation was that the study focuses on rape committed against women, neglecting the fact that men also experience various forms of sexual violence (Smith et al., 2017). There is some evidence that male rape myth acceptance is related to system justification and biological gender essentialism among Polish students (Łyś, 2021c); thus, it is important to include male rape myth acceptance in any future cross-cultural studies. There is also some evidence that LGBT+ people experience disproportionally more sexual violence than non-LGBT+ people (Semprevivo, 2020). Therefore, subsequent studies should also include beliefs concerning sexual violence toward LGBT+ people.

Recommendations for Research

The reasons behind the high scores of Polish people on rape myth acceptance, ambivalent sexism, and beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences need further investigation. For example, it is worth taking into account that attitudes may change over time not only at the individual level, but also at the societal level. According to Górska (2020), a large increase in homophobia in Poland in 2019 could have been caused by homophobic propaganda which started to appear more and more frequently in right-wing, pro-government media. Thus, longitudinal studies of sexism, beliefs in the biological origin of gender differences, and rape myth acceptance would be also useful.

As can be seen in Table 2, levels of belief in the biological origin of gender differences are significantly different between countries, whereas there are no such differences in levels of beliefs in cultural origins of gender differences. This suggests that beliefs in biological and cultural origins of gender differences are not just opposite ends of one continuum, but may be separate factors. We should also take into account that beliefs in cultural origins of gender differences do not inherently mean anti-essentialism: beliefs in social origins of such differences, when related to the immutability of those differences, may take the form of social essentialism (Rangel & Keller, 2011). Thus, further research concerning the structure of essentialist and anti-essentialist beliefs is needed.

Further studies should also include the link between system justification and rape myth acceptance. The differences in system justification between capitalist and post-communist countries are worth taking into account—according to Cichocka and Jost (2014), capitalist countries have higher levels of system justification than post-communist ones.

Recommendations for Prevention and Policy

According to WHO standards, prevention of sexual abuse and violence should be one of the purposes of sexual education (WHO Regional Office for Europe & BZgA, 2010). There is some evidence that education about rape myths is an effective method of rape prevention education (Currier & Carlson, 2009; Steinmetz et al., 2019). The results of Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2016) suggest that 27% of people living in EU countries believe that in some circumstances non-consensual sex can be justified, showing that such education is very much needed. Education programs should certainly take into consideration the societal roots of rape myth acceptance.

The relationship between sexism and rape myth acceptance was strong in all three countries. This result suggests that reduction of gender-based prejudices should be a part of rape prevention education. However, an experimental study is needed to support this conclusion. Nevertheless, we should take into account the boomerang effect which can occur among men with high levels of sexism as a reaction to content concerning gender equality (Bosson et al., 2015). We should also take into account the content concerning the origin of gender differences. Given that belief in the biological origin of gender differences predicts rape myth acceptance and sexism (both hostile and benevolent) is a mediator here, we may hypothesize that information about the social aspects of gender differences may be useful for debunking rape myths. There is some evidence that anti-essentialist content decreases the endorsement of gender-related stereotypes (Ching & Xu, 2018; Coleman & Hong, 2008), which seems to support this hypothesis. Nonetheless, experimental studies concerning the link between the exposure to anti-essentialist content and attitudes toward rape are needed.

Previous studies suggest a link between rape myth acceptance and perpetration of sexual violence (Abbey et al., 2011; Jewkes et al., 2011; Koss & Dinero, 1988; Malamuth et al., 1995). Moreover, there is also some evidence that a high level of rape myth acceptance is a risk factor for relapse among sexual offenders (Hudson et al., 2002). These results suggest that the potential social consequences of rape myth acceptance are serious. Thus, it is important that all countries, both in Europe and elsewhere, implement policies to dispel rape myths.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Agnieszka E. Łyś is now affiliated to Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.

Anna Studzińska is now affiliated to Institut Catholique d’Arts et Métiers, Toulouse, France .

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) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The study was funded by University of Warsaw (number of awards: 501-DG-59-0175219 and 5011000247) International collaboration was financially supported by Central European Exchange Program for University Studies (CEEPUS) and by University of Warsaw Integrated Development Programme (ZIP), co-financed by the European Social Fund’s Knowledge Education Development 2014 to 2020 Operational Programme, path 3.5.

ORCID iD

Agnieszka E. Łyś

Author Biographies

Agnieszka E. Łyś—psychologist, a postdoctoral researcher at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Her research interests focus on the sociocultural aspects of sexuality. In her PhD, she focused on the rape myth acceptance and rape victim blaming in the context of system justification theory and on the indirect measure of beliefs about sexual violence.

Anna Studzińska—psychologist, assistant professor of social psychology at the Institut Catholique d’Arts et Métiers in Toulouse. Her research interests focus on the differences in perception of people based on their gender and the evaluation of people who behave counter-stereotypically.

Kamilla Bargiel-Matusiewicz—a psychologist and a researcher in the field of health and stress psychology. Her work is focused on (1) coping with stress; (2) the psychological, cultural, and social aspects of stress and health; (3) determinants and correlates of violent behaviors; and (4) prevention of gender-based violence.

Boglárka Nyúl—psychologist, Postdoctoral researcher in Psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. She works at the Department of Social Psychology. In her research, she examines the role of rape myth acceptance and different situational factors in the evaluation of rape cases. She is also interested in prejudice and intergroup conflicts, especially toward women and Roma people.

Monika Folkierska-Żukowska—interdisciplinary researcher in the fields of biology, genetics, neuroscience, and psychology, she got her PhD at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw. Her research interests focus around the biology and the psychology of sexuality, as well as LGBT+ issues, including neural correlates of sexual orientation in men.

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