Does Knowledge about Sexuality Prevent Adolescents from Developing Rape-Supportive Beliefs?

Abstract

Believing that rape is acceptable in some situations may account for adolescent boys' perpetration of forced sex on girls. This study was intended to examine two hypothesized cognitive factors of adolescents' rape-supportive beliefs: general knowledge, measured with grade point average (GPA); and specific knowledge about sexuality, measured with a newly devised questionnaire. Fourteen-year-old adolescents (N = 248) participated in a short-term longitudinal study. They completed questionnaires designed to assess sexual knowledge and rape-supportive beliefs, and six months later completed them again. Sexual knowledge increased sharply between Time 1 and Time 2, whereas rape-supportive beliefs decreased during the same time. Boys obtained higher rape-supportive belief scores than girls. Regression analyses showed that sexual knowledge significantly predicted the level of rape-supportive beliefs six months later, independent of GPA and sex of participants. GPA accounted for a greater part of the variance in rape-supportive beliefs. This article discusses the importance of paying attention to the level of academic achievement of adolescents, as well as to their sexuality-specific knowledge, as a way of improving the efficiency of programs specializing in the prevention of adolescent sexual violence.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the University of West Paris, the Direction of Sanitary and Social Affairs, and the Henri Aigueperse Center. We thank the adolescents who participated in this study, the school staff and parents, as well as Dr. Jeanne-Marie Urcun-Shantz, head of the Office for Student Health in Reims district, who made the study possible. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.

Notes

Note. At T1, ns = 136 and 153 for boys and girls, respectively; and at T2, ns = 113 and 135 for boys and girls, respectively.

^a From Davis, Peck, and Storment (1993): ns = 100 for boys and 137 for girls.

Note. N = 248. Beta values are derived from the step at which each predictor was added to the equation. T1 = Time 1.

^a Boys coded as 1, and girls coded as 0.

*p < .01. **p < .001. ***p < .0001.