Deconstructing the Associations of Religiosity, Christian Denominations, and Non-Religions to Rape Myth Acceptance among University Students

What is it about?

Level of faith is not a predictor of university students’ rape myth acceptance. Non-religious affiliations (i.e., Agnosticism & Atheism) reject rape myths together with low religiosity scores; and, highly religious Catholics rejected rape myths but their lesser religious Catholics adhered to rape myths in general. At the same time Baptists and Presbyterians who exhibited the highest religiosity failed to be predictors of rape myth acceptance. Gender differences in rape myth acceptance depicted the largest magnitudes with Catholics, but male and female Presbyterians were equal in their degree of agreement with these myths.

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Why is it important?

Results challenge popular beliefs and stereotypes about the relationships between religion and views of rape because it demonstrates that it is not the strength of faith nor identifying with a particular denomination that primarily influences rape myth acceptance. Rather, religious aspects may be an extension of a different belief system that supports correlates of rape myths that do endorse rape myths. Such results indicate the importance of delineating religiosity and disaggregating religious affiliations when examining rape myth acceptance, which may explain the heterogeneous findings produced by previous scholars who also explored the relationship between religiosity and rape myth acceptance.

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