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Abstract
This systematics review examined the risk and protective factors that are associated with rape supportive attitude and other related concept such as Rape Myth Acceptance (RMA). Five published literature databases were searched using the relevant terms related to rape supportive attitudes. Articles that met the inclusion criteria were abstracted. The inclusion criteria included articles published in English language, with at least one measure of Rape Supportive Attitude, and associations of this measure with demographic and/or psychological variables, and published between 1985 and 2016. Out of 43 relevant articles, only 22 articles met the inclusion criteria. The studies predominantly demonstrated that the following risk factors were significantly associated with rape supportive attitude: male gender, gender role socialization, exposure to pornography, fraternity membership, ambivalent sexism, narcissistic personality. On the other hand, prior victimization was found to be both a risk and a protective factor as different studies had conflicting findings. Victim empathy, on the other hand was consistently found to be a protective factor against rape supportive attitude. The discussion, implications for research, policy and practice were also provided.
Keywords: rape supportive attitude; rape myth acceptance; systematic review
Introduction
Rape supportive attitude is an important factor that needs to be considered in the explanation of aggressive sexual behaviour of men towards women (Osman, 2004). As a definition, rape supportive attitudes are attitudes and beliefs that justify rape and its surrounding situations (Sierra, Santos-Iglesias, Gutierrez-Quintanilla, Bermudez, & Buela-Casal, 2010). It includes but not limited to hostile attitude towards rape victims, false beliefs about rape, and erroneous belief about the victim and the perpetrator of rape (Sierra et al., 2010). Burt (1980) as cited in Burgess (2007) further defined rape myths as prejudicial and stereotyped beliefs about rape and situations surrounding rape. Lottes (1991) in buttressing this definition described the various types of such beliefs: women enjoy violence and aggression during sex and sexual activities, victims of sexual abuse are to be blamed for their abuse, rape is justifiable if it is victim precipitated, and women are responsible for preventing their own rape. Such beliefs not only justify rape but also shift the blame from the perpetrator to the victim. Generally, rape-tolerant or rape supportive views are commonly called Rape Myth Acceptance (Burgess, 2007), for this reason,...