IngentaConnect Rape myth in true and false rape allegations

Authors: Norton, Russell¹; Grant, Tim²

Source: Psychology, Crime and Law, Volume 14, Number 4, August 2008 , pp. 275-285(11)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

Police records of 38 rape allegations, evenly split into maintained-as-true and withdrawn-as-false categories were compared with 19 generated-false statements from recruited participants. The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMAS) was used to assess the attitudes of the participants and a content analysis derived from IRMAS was used to compare the three categories of allegation. Rape myths were present in all three allegation types. The two categories of false allegation both contained more rape myths than the true allegations but no differences were found between the generated and withdrawn false allegations. High scorers in IRMAS also produced more violent false accounts. In addition to these findings, this study provides support for the further examination of rape myths in both false and true statements and use of generated allegations as proxies for real false statements.

Keywords: rape; stereotype; myth; true; false; allegations; IRMAS

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/10683160701770286

Affiliations: 1: HMP Channings Wood, Denbury, Newton Abbot, Devon, UK 2: Centre for forensic Linguistics, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham, UK

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