Abstract

The present study investigated if attitudes towards rape victim and perpetrator would be affected by people's sexual beliefs and stereotypes. A total of 209 college students read descriptions of six different sexual assault incidents and evaluated the degree to which the victim is responsible for the rape incident, the victim is suffering from the offense, and the perpetrator should be punished for the offense. In order to test if people's attitudes towards rape victim and perpetrator are related to their sexual beliefs and stereotypes, all subjects then responded to the scales of Attitude Toward Women, Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence, and Adversarial Sexual Beliefs. As a result, the present study revealed that people with negative attitudes towards women and high acceptance of interpersonal violence and adversarial sexual beliefs were more likely to believe that the victim is responsible for the rape incident, the victim is not likely to suffer from the offense, and the offender deserves less severe punishment.