Today I read the results of a study, “Rape Myth Beliefs and Bystander Attitudes Among Incoming College Students.” While the article was interesting I’m not sure how much of the information I will be able to use in my paper. The article focused on rape myths and how acceptance of rape myths could correlate to bystander attitudes. The study was done at a northeastern university and surveyed 2,338 incoming freshman.
One of the things that this article introduced me to was the bystander attitude. I have previously heard of the finding that, the more people who are present at the scene of a crime or emergency, the less likely someone is to help. However, I had not thought about incorporating that idea into my paper until after reading this article.
I do plan on using some of the information from this article because it relates the article from my last blog. In my last blog the article I read suggested that women are more fearful of crime because it could lead to rape. This article gives some insight as to why women are fearful of rape. The findings from the survey are that the more accepting a person is of rape myths the less likely they are to intervene as a bystander to a possible rape or a situation that could lead to rape. Therefore, the two have a negative correlation; as acceptance goes up, bystander attitudes go down.
It’s no wonder based on this study, why women are so afraid of being a victim of sexual assault; especially rape. Not only is the act a scary enough concept, but then you find that many people are accepting of rape myths, such as: she’s lying about being raped, she asked for it because she was acting/dressed slutty, he didn’t mean to because he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing, etc. Also the likelihood that a bystander will step in if they see a woman being taken advantage of is slim.
McMahon, Sarah. "Rape Myth Beliefs and Bystander Attitudes Among Incoming College Students." Journal of American College Health 59.1 (2010): 3-11. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 Jan. 2011.
Surprising the way our minds work. We always want other people to put themselves at harm, so as to keep us safe.
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