Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale: Validity and Reliability Evidence in the Portuguese Context

ABSTRACT

Child sexual abuse myths legitimize abusive behaviors, involving high levels of victim blame and low levels of offender liability. The present study aims to: (i) adapt a measure of endorsement of child sexual abuse myths to the Portuguese context (i.e., Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale – CSAMS); and (ii) provide validity and reliability evidence for this measure. A total of 423 adults (66.2% female) filled out a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, and the CSAMS. The CSAMS validity and reliability results supported the original structure, which comprises three dimensions: Blame Diffusion (e.g., ‘Adolescent girls who wear very revealing clothing are asking to be sexually abused’), Restrictive Stereotypes (e.g., ‘Most children are sexually abused by strangers or by men who are not well known to the child’), and Denial of Abusiveness (e.g., ‘Older children, who have a better understanding of sexual matters, have a responsibility to actively resist sexual advances by adults’). Configural and metric invariance by sex were held, and criterion validity was observed through significant associations between myths, sexism and sex. This study provided evidence in support of the validity and reliability of the Portuguese version of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale.

KEYWORDS:

• Child sexual abuse
• myths
• measurement
• psychometrics

Declaration of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the standards of the Ethical Committee of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Inês Chim

Inês Chim, MSc, Intern Psychologist at the Community Project Orienta.Te, under the 7th generation of the Escolhas’ Program, Portugal.

Eunice Magalhães

Eunice Magalhães, PhD, Researcher at the Centre for Social Research and Intervention (CIS-IUL), and Assistant Professor at ISCTE-IUL, Portugal.

João Graça

João Graça, PhD, Research Fellow at the University of Lisbon (Institute of Social Sciences) and Researcher at the Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), The Netherlands.

Carla Antunes

Carla Antunes, PhD, Assistant Professor at Lusófona University of Porto (Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sport) and Researcher at HEI-Lab – Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab, Portugal.

Célia Ferreira

Célia Ferreira, PhD, Assistant Professor at Lusófona University of Porto (Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sport) and Researcher at HEI-Lab – Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab, Portugal.