NCJ Number
164861
Journal
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1996) Pages: 586-592
Date Published
1996
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This study examined the relationship between rapists' scores on measures of loneliness, intimacy, hostility toward women, and rape myth acceptance.
Abstract
Twenty-seven incarcerated men who had been convicted of sexually assaulting an adult female participated in the study. None had been in prison for more than 8 months at the time of the assessment, and all were volunteers who were assured of the confidentiality of their responses. The instruments used in the study were the Waring's Intimacy Questionnaire, the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, Burt's Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, and Check's Hostility Toward Women Scale. The results of the study are consistent with predictions derived from the authors' theories regarding the relationship between loneliness, intimacy, hostility toward women, and rape myth acceptance. Loneliness and intimacy scores were negatively correlated as expected and were found to share more than 60 percent of their variance in common. Similarly, hostility toward women and rape myth acceptance were significantly related, sharing 67 percent of their variance in common. The most important relationships in this study were those between scores on the loneliness and intimacy measures, on the one hand, and scores on the hostility and rape myth acceptance scales on the other. Intimacy appears to be more strongly related to hostility toward women than does loneliness, and intimacy is also more strongly related to the acceptance of rape myths than is loneliness. These findings, along with the authors' other findings, strengthen the claim of a link between sexual assault and deficits in intimacy. 1 table and 30 references