Conformity to Masculine Norms and College Men’s Rape Myth Acceptance: The Role of Alcohol-Related Sex Expectancies

Sexual assault is an epidemic and is a widespread issue on US college campuses. The overwhelming majority of unwanted sexual contact among college populations is perpetrated by men with women most often being victimized. Additionally, most sexual violence on college campuses occurs in the context of drinking alcohol which is also prevalent in college populations. It is well established that sexual assault perpetration is predicted by college men’s acceptance of rape myths which is consistently associated with men’s conformity to traditional masculine norms. There is a critical need to further explore factors that may contribute to college men’s acceptance of rape myths to identify more specific beliefs and target populations for sexual assault intervention and prevention programming on college campuses. To this end, the current study aimed to fill gaps in the literature by exploring alcohol-related sex expectancies as potential moderators of the relationship between conformity to traditional masculine norms and college men’s rape myth acceptance. Undergraduate, heterosexual, cisgender men were recruited from psychology and business courses and completed self-report measures of demographic information, conformity to masculine norms, endorsement of alcohol-related sex expectancies and rape myths. A moderated path analysis approach was used to test potential moderating effects of alcohol-related sex expectancies on the relationship between conformity to masculine norms and rape myth acceptance. Results of multivariate multiple regression demonstrated associations between masculine norms of power over women and heterosexual self-preservation and rape myth acceptance. Results of moderation analyses evidenced two significant interactions. The first interaction was between the masculine norm of violence and alcohol-related sex expectancies on rape myths regarding victim credibility, and the second was between the masculine norm of playboy on beliefs that victim behavior causes sexual assault. Current findings provide information regarding factors that influence acceptance of specific rape myths and implications for programming to ultimately reduce such beliefs and perpetration of sexual assault by heterosexual, cisgender men on college campuses.