NCJ Number
189595
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Dated: July/Augus 2001 Pages: 395-413
Editor(s)
Vincent B. Van Hasselt,
Michel Hersen
Date Published
2001
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This article discussed the internal processes and behavioral outcomes of adult male and female rape victims raped after the age of 18 years. It was concerned with the cognitive scripting within victimological perspectives related to rape.
Abstract
This article reviewed the adult rape experience drawing from theoretical conceptualizations in both psychology and victimology. It was seen that the perceptions of vulnerability to victimization promoted a feeling of unique invulnerability in the absence of victimization. However, should victimization, such as rape occur this ideology would implicate detrimental effects of adjustment, including the secondary victimization from others. Secondary victimization is confronting public attitudes about rape. These victimological perspectives are cognitive scripts. Cognitive scripting highlights the internal, social, and cultural processes that are generated in a sexual context, such as rape. These scripts operate as thoughts and trigger behaviors in response to the experiences encountered by a rape victim. With rape being an aggressive act, as well as life-threatening, males and females have very strong reactions to the experience of rape. Cognitive scripts develop over time from exposure to family dynamics, socio-cultural tenets describing gender roles and sexual conduct, and from an individual’s parameters and dimensions of sexual individuality and disposition. Due to the nature of a person’s script, they react differently to rape. Reactions vary greatly for males and females. They stem primarily from the different forms of social conditioning that males and females experience in Western culture. The nature of coping is dependent upon the victimological status of the individual and associated with the scripts the individual holds in relation to rape. The coping and adjustment process is likely to be greater for males because of the cultural influences on these scripts. Gender differences in the quality of coping are an important ingredient in the assessment and analysis of victimological scripting of raped adults. References