melikeavcı* The Effect of Awareness Raising and Myths on Attitudes Toward Survivors of Sexual Assault

The main purpose of the study is to measure the effect of the rape myths and the awareness raising video on attitudes toward rape victims. Rape myths were presented to participants as nontraditional, traditional and neutral conditions. The awareness video explained that rape myths are false beliefs. Attitudes were measured before and after the video for each scenario condition. 131 participants are included in this study. 3x2 Within- between factorial design was used. Illinois rape myth scale and attitudes toward rape victim scale were used. As a result, attitudes changed positively after the awareness video. The significant effect was observed in traditional and nontraditional scenario conditions but not in neutral condition. Rape myths and attitudes toward rape victim scale positively correlated indicating that as rape myths increased, negative attitudes towards survivors increased. There was no difference between males and females in terms of rape myths.Consequently, females changed their attitudes in a positive way after the awareness video, males did not.