Schema Effects of Rape Myth Acceptance on Judgments of Guilt and Blame in Rape Cases: The Role of Perceived Entitlement to Judge

Two experiments (N = 330) examined conditions that facilitate biasing effects of rape myth acceptance (RMA) on judgments of blame in rape cases. In both experiments, participants read a short vignette depicting a rape case. In Experiment 1, the amount of case-irrelevant information about defendant and plaintiff was varied. As predicted, high-RMA (vs. low-RMA) participants were less likely to blame the defendant the more irrelevant information they had read. In Experiment 2, participants in a social judgeability condition were made to believe that they had been subliminally exposed to additional case information although in fact no additional information had been presented. As predicted, compared to a control condition, participants' blame judgments were more biased by their RMA under social judgeability. Our findings reveal that the mechanism underlying the biasing effects of RMA may be the subjective feeling of entitlement to judge.