Alcohol Use,Rape Myth Acceptance,Rape Empathy,and Sexual Assault History Influence the Believability of a Hypothetical Victim’s Report of Sexual Assault

Abstract

College sexual assault is a common problem, and survivors often do not report their experience to college campus officials or law enforcement for fear of not being believed. This study examined how contextual factors such as alcohol use and whether the perpetrator was described as a student-athlete or student, and rater characteristics, such as the history of sexual assault and attitudes toward rape, influenced college students’ perceptions of the believability of a hypothetical victim’s sexual assault account. In all, 449 (N = 449) undergraduates read a vignette describing a hypothetical sexual assault and were assigned randomly to one of four conditions with varying contextual features: college athlete—no alcohol, college athlete—alcohol, college student—no alcohol, or college student—alcohol. They then rated how much they believed the victim in the vignette had been raped (0 [not at all] to 100 [completely]). The presence of alcohol use in the vignette was associated with lower ratings of believability, and participants who were higher in rape myth acceptance and lower in rape empathy rated the hypothetical victim’s rape account as less believable. In addition, women who had been raped previously rated the victim in the vignette as more believable than women with no history of sexual assault. Implications for how college campuses might respond more effectively to reported sexual assaults are discussed.

Keywords

reporting/disclosure sexual assault situational factors date rape

Sexual assault (SA) on college campuses is common and associated with negative physical and psychological consequences for victims (Cantor et al., 2015; Eisenberg et al., 2016; Zinzow et al., 2011). Despite efforts intended to provide access to resources for SA on college campuses (White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, 2014), a minority of college students who experience SA utilize these resources (Sinozich & Langton, 2014). Similarly, only 20% of college women who experience SA report their experiences to law enforcement (Krebs et al., 2007) and individuals are more likely to disclose SA to informal (e.g., friends) than to formal networks (e.g., police or counselors). The likelihood of a college student reporting SA is further reduced by situational factors, such as the presence of alcohol or drugs during the event or by the victim’s relationship (i.e., intimate partner vs. stranger) to their perpetrator (Spencer, 2016; Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2011).

One significant barrier to accessing resources or reporting campus SA is concern about whether a victim’s SA report will be believed (Cantor et al., 2015; Walsh et al., 2010), and research suggests that these concerns may be heightened in cases in which the perpetrator is a student-athlete (Tredinnick, 2020). In a handful of highly publicized cases, universities have been criticized by researchers and the public for failing to respond to SA allegations against student-athletes (O’Neill, 2018). Understanding the role that factors such as student-athlete status and alcohol use may play in whether victims’ allegations are believed or taken seriously is important for responding to and reducing sexual violence on college campuses.

Contextual Features

Student-Athletes and Campus SA

Incidents of SA involving college athletes, such as Brock Turner, a student-athlete at Stanford University who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious undergraduate woman in 2016, have frequently made headlines (Hamilton, 2016). While a majority of studies have found that student-athletes are more likely to be perpetrators of sexual violence than non-athletes (McCray, 2015; Young et al., 2016), some research has found that student-athletes are no more likely to engage in sexual violence than their non-athlete counterparts (Crosset et al., 1995; Milner & Baker, 2017). Despite these mixed findings, there is evidence that cases involving accusations of SA by college athletes have drawn criticism for insufficient responses by university officials, such as failing to report or investigate allegations of SA (O’Neil, 2018). Cultural factors within university athletic programs, such as an emphasis on secrecy or prioritizing the reputations of their programs, are associated with poorer responses to SA allegations against athletes (Mountjoy et al., 2016). Programs that do not respond in a timely manner to SA allegations against their athletes are also likely to deter victims from reporting assault experiences (Melnick, 1992). To date, one study examined whether perpetrators’ athlete and celebrity status influenced raters’ perceptions of perpetrator guilt and victim credibility (Franiuk et al., 2020). The authors found no main effects of athlete or celebrity status on perceptions of victim credibility. Although this study examined perceptions of victims and perpetrators when the perpetrator was described as being an athlete, the hypothetical victim was not described as a college student. Thus, additional research is needed to understand whether these findings generalize to campus SA involving student-athletes.

Alcohol and SA on College Campuses

The presence of alcohol before or during a SA is common, with alcohol use by the perpetrator, the victim, or both individuals present in over 50% of incidents (Abbey et al., 2014; Lorenz & Ullman, 2016). Alcohol use during SA also is associated with changes in how victims are perceived by others. In written vignettes, women who were described as using alcohol were viewed as being more responsible for the assault and less credible in their reporting than women who were not described as consuming alcohol (Sims et al., 2007). Similarly, research asking raters to evaluate the believability of a hypothetical SA vignette rated the woman’s account as less believable as contextual features of the assault, including alcohol use, were included in the vignette (Nason et al., 2019).

Alcohol is likely to play a similarly important role in SAs by college athletes. College students with more positive expectancies regarding alcohol use (e.g., perceptions that alcohol will enhance sexual interactions) were more likely to report engaging in coercive sexual behavior (Palmer et al., 2010). In general, college athletes consume alcohol more frequently and are more likely to engage in sexual behaviors while consuming alcohol than non-athletes (Hildebrand et al., 2001). Hazardous drinking also is associated with an increased risk of perpetrating domestic and sexual violence in a sample of male college athletes (Cantor et al., 2020). Finally, participating in sports moderates the relationship between alcohol use and violent behaviors, with athletes endorsing more frequent alcohol use and engagement in interpersonal violence than non-athletes (Sønderlund et al., 2014).

Rater Characteristics

In addition to the situational features associated with SA, individual difference variables associated with a rater, including gender, attitudes (i.e., rape empathy, rape myth acceptance, and hostile masculinity), and previous experiences of sexual violence may affect perceptions of hypothetical SA narratives. For instance, men are less likely to believe a victim’s SA account than women, regardless of the age or race of the alleged victim (Emmers-Sommer, 2017). Nason et al. (2019) asked raters to evaluate the believability of a hypothetical SA. Initial judgments of believability were comparable for men and women; however, after learning that the alleged perpetrator and victim had a previous relationship, men rated the hypothetical victim as significantly less believable than women. This finding suggests that situational features associated with SA may exert disparate influences on men and women’s judgments of hypothetical SA victims. This relationship between gender and judgments of believability is consistent with similar research demonstrating that men, relative to women, attribute more blame and responsibility to victims of SA (Schneider et al., 2009).

A number of attitudinal variables, such as rape empathy, rape myth acceptance, and hostile masculinity also are likely to be related to the believability of SA narratives. For instance, past research found that higher rape myth acceptance was associated with perceptions of decreased believability (Nason et al., 2019), increased responsibility (Blumberg & Lester, 1991), and less empathy toward SA victims (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994). Similarly, lower levels of rape empathy were associated with both decreased believability (Nason et al., 2019) and less empathy toward SA victims (Smith & Frieze, 2003). Hostile masculinity has also been shown to negatively influence men’s perceived control of behaviors associated with asking for sexual consent (Hermann et al., 2018), while hostile sexism has been associated with an increased propensity for sexual violence (Cantor et al., 2020). Notably, men also demonstrated lower levels of rape empathy relative to women (Deitz et al., 1982). Based on the extant literature, these gender differences in attitudes might also be expected to differentially influence men’s and women’s perceptions of a hypothetical SA victim (Bottoms et al., 2014; Brown & Testa, 2008; Nason et al., 2019).

Finally, research is mixed regarding the influence of individuals’ SA history on perceptions of hypothetical victims’ narratives of SA. While some research has failed to find a relationship between women’s own SA history and perceptions of a SA victim’s believability (Nason et al., 2019), other work found that both direct and indirect (i.e., knowing about the experiences of a close friend or relative) exposure to interpersonal trauma increased the believability of a hypothetical childhood sexual abuse disclosure (Cromer & Freyd, 2009). However, given important differences between SA during childhood versus as an adult (Messman-Moore et al., 2000), additional research is needed to examine the relationship between an individual’s SA history and perceptions of believability. Moreover, women with a history of SA rated a hypothetical victim as less culpable for victimization experiences than women without a SA history (Miller et al., 2011).

Current Study

Although there is clear evidence that universities often fail to provide a sufficient response to allegations of sexual violence against college athletes (Tredinnick, 2020), research has yet to examine the combined influence of student-athlete status and alcohol use on college students’ judgments of the believability of a hypothetical victim’s SA account. In addition, further research is needed to determine how individual rater characteristics (i.e., gender, sexual attitudes and beliefs, and SA history) influence judgments of SA narratives (Hakimi et al., 2018; Xenos & Smith, 2001).

The current study examined college students’ perceptions of the believability of a hypothetical SA vignette. Participants rated the believability (ranging from not at all to completely) of the hypothetical victim’s account in vignettes in which the man was described as either a college athlete or a college student, and the woman was described as drinking either water or alcohol. We examined whether situational features (i.e., the presence of alcohol use and the status of the perpetrator as a student-athlete) and individual rater characteristics (i.e., gender, rape empathy, rape myth acceptance, hostile masculinity, and previous experiences of SA) affected the believability of a hypothetical SA victim’s account. Believability (i.e., the extent to which the victim’s account is perceived as truthful) has been used as a dependent variable in prior work examining participants’ judgments about hypothetical SA narratives (Emmers-Sommer, 2017; Nason et al., 2019) and was emphasized in the current study because previous research has found it to be a significant barrier to undergraduate victims reporting their experiences to college officials (Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2011), family members (Crisma et al., 2004), and friends (Alaggia & Wang, 2020).

Based on the extant literature, we expected that (a) participants would rate the hypothetical victim’s account as less believable when the perpetrator was described as a student-athlete relative to when the perpetrator was described as a student, and (b) participants would rate the hypothetical victim’s account as less believable when alcohol use was present in the vignette as compared to when alcohol was absent. With regard to individual difference variables, we hypothesized that (c) participants with higher rape myth acceptance and lower rape empathy would rate the hypothetical victim’s vignette as less believable than participants with lower rape myth acceptance and higher rape empathy; (d) men would rate the hypothetical victim’s account as less believable than women; (e) men who endorsed more hostile masculinity would rate the hypothetical victim’s account as less believable than men with less hostile masculinity; and (f) women with a more severe history of SA would rate the hypothetical victim’s vignette as more believable than women with less severe SA histories.

Method

Participants

Participants in the current study were 449 undergraduate students at a large Southwestern university. The majority of participants were 18–25 years old (85%), female (73%), and unmarried (93%). The sample was ethnically and racially diverse: 43% of participants identified as Hispanic/Spanish/Latino, 36% as White/Caucasian, 8% as American Indian/Alaskan Native, 6% as Asian American, 2% as African American, and 5% as “Other.” Only 6% of participants reported being college athletes.

Procedure

Study procedures were conducted by the university’s Institutional Review Board. The study was conducted online, and participants received research credit they could use for extra credit in psychology courses. Participants were told the purpose of the study was to examine undergraduates’ perceptions of a hypothetical heterosexual social interaction. They were also able to contact the research assistant and primary investigator if they had any questions about the study before or after participation. After providing informed consent, participants were assigned to one of the following four conditions based on the last digit of their phone number: (a) college athlete—no alcohol, (b) college athlete—alcohol, (c) college student—no alcohol, or (d) college student—alcohol. For all conditions, participants first read the vignette (presented below) and rated the degree to which they believed that the woman was raped by the man in the vignette. They then completed three manipulation check items to ensure that they understood the important elements of the vignette, as well as additional self-report measures.

Measures

Vignettes

The four vignettes were identical in their depiction of a hypothetical SA; they differed only in details regarding the perpetrator’s group membership (student-athlete vs. student) and what the hypothetical victim was drinking at the party (water or alcohol):

A 25-year-old college student had just gotten off work when a friend called and invited her to a party at her house. After a long day, she was tired but agreed to go. While at the party, she began chatting with a man whom she recognized as a star athlete [student] from (the name of the university where the research was conducted). While at the party she drank [alcohol] only water. It started to get late and she decided to leave the party, and the man offered to walk her home. She agreed. Once they got back to her place, she invited him in to hang out a little longer and watch some TV. While watching TV, they began to kiss. He began unbuttoning her pants. She said that she told him she was uncomfortable going any further and asked him to stop. However, she stated that he did not stop and forced her to have sexual intercourse with him. The man reported that they had sexual intercourse, but said she did not tell him she was uncomfortable or ask him to stop.

After reading the vignette, participants were asked to rate the degree to which they believed that the woman was raped by the man in this vignette, on a scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 100 (completely). These ratings were heavily skewed toward the top of the scale (48.8% of participants said they were 100% sure); thus, responses were dichotomized into sure (100%) or unsure (everything below 100%) for the analyses.

Manipulation Check

Three questions asked who the man in the situation was, where the woman was before returning to her place, and what the woman was drinking. Participants were required to correctly answer all questions on the manipulation check to be included in the analyses. In all, 67 participants (14.89%) failed the manipulation check and were excluded from the analyses.

Demographics Questionnaire

Participants reported their age range, gender, marital status, and academic status including college major and grade point average(GPA), ethnicity, sexual orientation, Greek status, and membership in a college athletics program.

Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale Short Form

The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale Short Form (IRMAS-SF) is a 20-item measure assessing the degree to which participants endorse stereotyped or false beliefs about rape using a seven-point Likert scale. The IRMAS-SF has shown good construct validity and internal consistency (α = .87; Payne et al., 1999). Total scores were obtained by summing all of the items. In the current study, the mean total IRMAS-SF score was 48.6 (SD = 13.7) for men and 42.8 (SD = 8.8) for women, and the internal consistency was α = .79. The current study used the original IRMAS-SF (Payne et al., 1999) rather than the Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (McMahon & Farmer, 2011) because it is the most widely used measure of rape myth acceptance (Fejervary, 2017), and because researchers have noted the limited use of Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (McMahon & Farmer, 2011) within the literature (Fejervary, 2017).

Rape Empathy Scale

The Rape Empathy Scale (RES) is a 19-item measure that assesses empathy toward either rapists or rape victims (Deitz et al., 1982). For this study, the RES was modified so that participants read two opposing statements: one that shows empathy for the perpetrator and one that shows empathy for the victim, and then selected the statement with which they most agree. Participants then rated on a seven-point Likert scale, the degree to which they agree with the statement they selected (1 = no preference and 7 = strong preference). Items indicating empathy for the rapist were reverse coded so that item scores ranged from −6 (strong empathy for the rapist) to 6 (strong empathy for the rape victim). An example of an item on the RES is “In general, I feel that rape is an act that is provoked by the rape victim” versus “In general, I feel that rape is an act that is NOT provoked by the rape victim.” Scores were averaged across all responses for each participant; the mean RES score was 4.8 (SD = 1.1) for women and 3.8 (SD = 1.4) for men, and the internal consistency of the RES was α = .83. The RES was selected for this study because this instrument requires participants to provide a response that considers their attitudes toward both the victim and the perpetrator. This measure has also been used effectively in similar research on perceptions of believability in SA accounts (e.g., Bottoms et al., 2014).

Sexual Experiences Survey

Women completed the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES), a 10-item self-report questionnaire that measures women’s sexual SA histories since the age of 14 (Koss et al., 1987). The SES has good internal consistency (α = .74), a 1 week test–retest reliability of r = .93, and strong convergent validity with interview responses (r = .73; Koss & Gidycz, 1985). The 1987 version of the SES was used because psychometric data regarding the new version require replication in epidemiological studies using larger samples (Johnson et al., 2017). In the current study, the internal consistency of the SES was α = .80. Using the common scoring procedure (e.g., Koss & Dinero, 1989; Gidycz et al., 1993; Yeater et al., 2010), participant responses were coded so that each woman was assigned a score based on their most severe SA experience since the age of 14 (0 = no sexual victimization, 1 = unwanted sexual contact, 2 = sexual coercion, 3 = attempted rape, and 4 = completed rape). Among the sample of 326 women, 44.8% (n = 146) reported no SA, 10.7% (n = 35) reported unwanted sexual contact, 0.9% (n = 3) reported sexual coercion, 24.8% (n = 81) reported attempted rape, and 18.7% (n = 61) reported rape.

Malamuth Hostile Masculinity Composite Measure

Consistent with previous research (Hoyt & Yeater, 2011; Malamuth et al., 1995), men’s hostile masculinity was assessed using a composite measure consisting of (a) the Sexual Dominance Scale (Nelson, 1979); (b) the Adversarial Sexual Beliefs Scale (Burt, 1980); (c) the Hostility Toward Women Scale (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995); and (d) a three-item measure of impersonal sex (i.e., frequency of spontaneous arousal, masturbation, and infidelity; Malamuth et al., 1995). The sum of standardized values for each scale was used as an index of hostile masculinity. In the current study, the internal consistency for the composite scale was α = .91.

Results

The descriptive statistics and bivariate relationships between the rater characteristics and believability ratings are presented in Table 1. Gender, rape myth acceptance, and rape empathy were significantly related to believability ratings. Men were more likely to indicate some level of uncertainty with the believability of the narratives: across conditions, approximately 40% of male raters believed the account completely, while approximately 52% of women believed the account completely. In addition, participants who were higher in rape myth acceptance and lower in rape empathy were less likely to rate the scenarios as 100% believable.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for Individual Difference Variables.

Individual Difference Variables	Believability		t Value	Chi-square
	Sure	Unsure
	M (SD) or %	M (SD) or %
Gender
Male	39.8	60.2
Female	52.3	47.7		5.55*
Rape myth acceptance	47.36 (12.09)	41.21 (7.83)	6.41***
Rape empathy	4.92 (.95)	4.16 (1.35)	−6.93***

p < .05. ^***p < .001.

Given the significant bivariate relationships among believability and gender, rape myth acceptance and rape empathy, these variables were included with condition (alcohol vs. no alcohol and athlete vs. non-athlete) as predictors of believability ratings (sure vs. unsure) in a binomial logistic regression. Table 2 presents the results of this model. The model was statistically significant, X²(5, N = 448) = 65.21, p < .001, and had small to moderate explanatory power (Nagelkerke’s R² = .18). Participants were 40% less likely to say the account was 100% believable when the woman was drinking alcohol than when she was not drinking alcohol. Higher rape empathy and lower rape myth acceptance continued to be associated with a higher likelihood that the woman’s account was rated as 100% believable.

Table 2.

The Effects of Condition, Gender, and Attitudes Toward Rape on Believability Ratings.

Predictors	B	SE	Exp (B)	95% CI
Athlete condition	0.028	0.207	1.03	[0.69, 1.54]
Alcohol condition	−0.504	0.204	0.60**	[0.41, 0.90]
Gender	0.022	0.247	1.02	[0.63, 1.66]
Rape myth acceptance	−0.044	0.013	0.96***	[0.93, 0.98]
Rape empathy	0.453	0.113	1.57***	[1.26, 1.96]

^**p < .01. ^***p < .001.

Interestingly, although female participants were more likely than male participants to rate the woman’s account as 100% believable in bivariate analyses, gender was not a statistically significant factor in the logistic regression model. Follow-up analyses revealed that men, relative to women, reported higher rape myth acceptance, t(447) = −4.38, p < .001 and lower rape empathy, t(447) = 6.98, p < .001. These findings suggest that gender may be a proxy variable for attitudes toward rape that were associated with ratings of believability. There was not a significant relationship between the man’s status as a student-athlete or student and ratings of believability.

Additional logistic regressions were conducted to examine the effects of hostile masculinity (among men) and severity of SA history (among women) on believability ratings. While there was no significant relationship between hostile masculinity and ratings of believability, women who were raped were 1.3 times more likely to rate the vignette as 100% believable than women who had no history of SA, but no other types of SA severity (i.e., unwanted sexual contact, sexual coercion, attempted rape) were significantly related to perceptions of believability. Table 3 presents the full results of this analysis.

Table 3.

The Effects of Type of Sexual Assault History on Believability Ratings.

Type of Sexual Assault	B	SE	Exp (B)	95% CI
Unwanted contact	0.030	0.377	1.03	[0.49, 2.16]
Coercion	−0.721	1.236	0.49	[0.04, 5.48]
Attempted rape	−0.301	0.279	0.74	[0.43 1.28]
Rape	0.820	0.327	2.27*	[1.20, 4.31]

p < .05.

Discussion

In this study, we examined whether contextual features such as alcohol use and student-athlete status as well as rater characteristics, such as attitudes toward rape, hostile masculinity, and SA history, influenced perceptions of the believability of a hypothetical SA account. We found that alcohol use in the vignette as well as raters’ personal beliefs about rape were associated with believability ratings; participants who endorsed more rape myths and less rape empathy were less likely to rate the hypothetical SA as 100% believable.

Contextual Features

Findings revealed that participants were less likely to believe that the woman was raped when she was drinking alcohol than when she was not drinking alcohol. This supported our hypothesis and is consistent with previous research, which has found that women who report alcohol use during a SA are seen as more responsible for their assault (Sims et al., 2007) and less believable (Nason et al., 2019; Sims et al., 2007). The influence of alcohol use on ratings of believability persisted even when other important contextual features of the vignette were varied (e.g., whether the perpetrator was a student-athlete) (Nason et al., 2019). This suggests that alcohol use may be one of the most salient contextual features of SA accounts influencing judgments of believability, which is particularly troubling given that more than half of the SAs involve alcohol use (Abbey et al., 2014; Lorenz & Ullman, 2016). That is, women who were drinking when raped may be significantly less inclined to report the rape, and others who hear the account may be less likely to believe their report.

Our hypothesis that participants would be less likely to believe the hypothetical SA when the perpetrator was a student-athlete relative to a student was not supported. This is the first study to examine whether student-athlete status influenced ratings of believability among college students. This finding is consistent with one previous study, though that study did not include college students who evaluated vignettes or describe the victim as a college student (Franiuk et al., 2020). Given evidence that student-athletes are more likely to perpetrate sexual violence (McCray, 2015; Young et al., 2016), and the frequent criticism of university responses to SA allegations against student-athletes (O’Neill, 2018), it is important to further examine whether college women’s accounts of rape by student-athletes are perceived as less believable. It may be the case that student-athlete status may negatively influence perceptions of the believability of SA accounts at universities that prioritize the reputations of their athletics programs when responding to SA allegations against athletes. Given that data from the current study were not gathered at a university in a top academic conference, further research may benefit from investigating this relationship among college students enrolled at such universities. Although it is important to understand college students’ perceptions of believability because of the key role they play in victims’ disclosures (Sabina & Ho, 2014), it may also be the case that athlete status does not affect students’ perceptions of believability, but instead influences independently the perceptions and actions of university and court officials. Thus, future research might examine how college and court administrators judge the believability of women’s accounts of SA committed by student-athletes.

Rater Characteristics

Our expectation that participants’ attitudes toward rape would be associated with ratings of believability was supported. Participants who reported higher levels of rape myth acceptance and lower levels of rape empathy were less likely to report that they completely believed that the woman depicted in the vignette was raped. These findings are consistent with previous literature that has found that higher rape myth acceptance and lower rape empathy were associated with perceptions of decreased believability of a woman depicted in a rape vignette (Nason et al., 2019), yet this study differs from and extends prior work in important ways. First, Nason et al. (2019) only examined rape empathy among men, so they were not able to determine whether the relationship between rape empathy and perceptions of believability was similar among women. In addition, they found an interaction between the contextual features of the situation and rape empathy, such that men who reported higher rape empathy provided higher ratings of believability with the addition of information in the vignette about relationship status, but not with the addition of information about alcohol use. However, information about alcohol use was added after information about the prior relationship; thus, the authors were unable to determine whether the type of contextual information (i.e., relationship status vs. alcohol use) influenced judgments of believability. The design of the current study allowed for a more precise investigation of the influence of the presence of alcohol use on ratings of believability than the prior work (Nason et al., 2019).

Previous findings also suggested that gender and rape myth acceptance interacted such that higher rape myth acceptance was associated with lower ratings of believability for male participants but not for female participants (Nason et al., 2019), which is partially consistent with our findings. We found that rape myth acceptance, independent of gender, influenced ratings of believability. Our hypothesis that men would be less likely than women to believe that the woman in the vignette had been raped was supported, but this finding became nonsignificant when rape myth acceptance and rape empathy were included in the model. Notably, the literature examining rater gender and perceptions of the believability of rape narratives has revealed mixed findings. While studies have found that men are less likely to believe women’s accounts of rape (Emmers-Sommer, 2017; Nason et al., 2019), this relationship between gender and perceptions of believability is complicated by factors that vary by gender, such as attitudes toward rape. Given that men reported higher rape myth acceptance and lower rape empathy than women, the gender differences in ratings of believability in the current study were likely due to attitudes toward rape, suggesting that gender is merely a proxy variable for attitudes toward rape victims. Previous research has, at times, failed to find gender differences in victim blame related to SA (e.g., Krahé, 1988; Wiener et al., 1989). These null findings may be explained by attribution theory. That is, women may feel similar to hypothetical victims and want to protect themselves from a similar fate by placing more blame on the victim, thereby making the victim different from them in important ways (Grubb & Turner, 2012). If so, such a process would result in believability ratings that, on average, are more similar to those of men.

Our hypothesis that women who have been more severely sexually assaulted would be more likely to believe that the woman in the vignette was raped was supported. This is consistent with previous research (Miller et al., 2011), yet inconsistent with the findings from other work (Nason et al., 2019). Interestingly, only women who had been raped were more likely than women who had not experienced SA to indicate that they completely believed the woman in the vignette. There was no effect of SA history on ratings of believability for survivors of unwanted sexual contact, sexual coercion, or attempted rape relative to women who reported no prior SA. This may be because the vignette described a rape and the effects of SA history on ratings of believability are specific to the type of SA. Future research might examine further how the type of SA experienced by and reported by the rater may be related to judgments of the believability of rape accounts.

Interestingly, hostile masculinity was unrelated to perceptions of believability in this study. This is inconsistent with previous research that has shown that men high in hostile sexism, relative to men lower in hostile sexism, were more likely to interpret a hypothetical victim as engaging in token resistance (Masser et al., 2006) and to blame victims (Abrams et al., 2003; Cohn et al., 2009). Our findings may be due to the restricted range of hostile masculinity within the sample of undergraduate men who elected to participate in the study.

As with any research, there are limitations to the current study. First, though the vignettes described the hypothetical victim’s alcohol use, they did not describe the perpetrator’s alcohol use. To more fully understand the relationship between alcohol use and ratings of believability, it may be helpful to determine whether the perpetrator’s alcohol use also influences judgments of the believability of hypothetical victims’ reports of SA.

The vignette may also have been limited with respect to wording. We described the athlete as a “star athlete,” which may have led some participants to envision a particular individual and attribute specific characteristics to that individual, influencing their judgments of believability. In the student condition, we did not explicitly state that the student was not an athlete; thus, future work should endeavor to examine whether this distinction influences participants’ believability ratings.

In addition, we assessed college students’ ratings of the believability of a woman’s account of rape. While research suggests that survivors of SA are much more likely to disclose to informal sources such as friends than to formal sources such as police or counselors (Sabina & Ho, 2014), future research might investigate how campus officials judge reports of rape to determine how those judgments may influence universities’ formal reactions to SA. Similarly, future work might also examine the extent to which student-athlete status influences perceptions of believability of the alleged perpetrator’s account of SA relative to the alleged victim’s account. Finally, the current study did not provide raters with a definition of rape. Prior research has demonstrated that there is variability in the definitions of rape used by lay individuals, law enforcement, and research experts (Campbell & Johnson, 1997; Cook et al., 2011; Haugen et al., 2018). Providing participants with an operational definition of rape in this scenario may have resulted in different findings.

This research has implications for both prevention and disclosure of SA. To bolster prevention efforts, it is essential to understand which elements of the situation (e.g., alcohol use, prior relationship between the victim and the perpetrator) to which college students attend when judging SA events. Further research might continue to determine whether the elements of the situation that college students use to make judgments of SA events are aligned with those known to be related to SA (Franiuk et al., 2020). To improve campus responses to SA and ensure that college student survivors of SA feel safe disclosing their experiences, it is important to better understand potential barriers to the disclosure of SA. Findings from the current study suggest that women who report SA are less likely to be believed by their college peers when they are described as drinking alcohol before the SA. This is extremely problematic given the high prevalence of alcohol in SAs (Abbey et al., 2014) and the commonality of alcohol use on college campuses (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2020). However, it is not only the context of the event itself that influences judgments of SA believability; individual raters’ likelihood of believing a woman’s account of SA may be influenced by their attitudes toward rape and/or their own SA history. To address SA on college campuses, the influence of contextual features and rater characteristics should be investigated further in future work.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

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

ORCID iDs

Jenny K. Rinehart

Elizabeth A. Yeater

Kristen Vitek

Author Biographies

Jenny K. Rinehart, PhD, is an associate professor of teaching in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine. Her research addresses cognitive and attitudinal factors related to sexual assault and social and contextual factors surrounding women’s sexual victimization.

Erica E. Nason, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Texas State University. Her research focuses on topics related to the prevention and treatment of trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and other stress-related disorders in vulnerable populations.

Elizabeth A. Yeater, PhD, is a professor and a director of clinical training in the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on identifying contextual and interpersonal factors associated with women’s risk of sexual victimization using a social information processing model and methods borrowed from cognitive science.

Ryan Ross, MS, is currently a graduate student at the University of New Mexico in the Clinical Psychology PhD program. He received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology and MS in Clinical Psychology from the University of New Mexico. His research interests include gender differences in sexual trauma and risk factors for sexual victimization.

Kristen Vitek, PhD, is currently a psychology fellow at Ralph H. Johnson Medical Center in Charleston, SC. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of New Mexico. Her research interests focus on trauma, particularly sexual victimization as it relates to interpersonal functioning.

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