The journal article “Examining Sex Differences in Altering Attitudes about Rape: A Test of the Elaboration Likelihood Model” details a study that uses the Elaboration Likelihood Model to examine how attitudes toward rape change and which route, central or peripheral, was more compelling. The researchers clearly state their six hypotheses that focused on the differences in beliefs between men and women during a pretest, posttest, and follow-up assessment regarding rape and sexual assault.
This study is important because of the growing epidemic of sexual assault and rape in the United States, but most specifically women on college campuses. According to the investigators, the purpose of this study is to find out if the recent addition of rape education programs truly decreases rapesupportive attitudes. More specifically, if changes in methods of delivery have a greater effect. The analysts define the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as two routes of attitude change, which are the peripheral and central.
The model suggests that when people lack the motivation to hear a message, they are more likely to attend to peripheral cues such as expertness, attractiveness, or trustworthiness of the presenter. Whereas, when people have a high level of personal involvement and are motivated to hear a message, they process a message centrally. The researchers cite sources that are pertinent to the study. They describe the advancements in past research from the first study related to general attitude change in 1968 to the most recent study that incorporated the use of the ELM when measuring attitude change.
However, the review only mentions one rape prevention based investigation. The literature review may have benefited from incorporating more studies that are closely related to the specific research topic of rape and sexual assault. In spite of the broadness of the review, the references used in this article are recent in regards to the year the article itself was written, which is 1995. Moreover, this study was built on previous rape prevention research conducted by Gilbert and her associates; it added to the size, sex composition, and academic diversity of the population sample.
Additionally, methodological refinements such as assessing the amount of issue-relevant thinking, were made. The research methodology used was based on selfreports and composed of many different measurement tools. For instance, the Adversarial Sexual Beliefs Scale (ASB) was used to measure adversarial sexual beliefs, and the Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (RMA) was designed to measure general acceptance of rape myths. Furthermore, the Speaker Rating Form (SRF) measured the students’ views of the rape prevention programming speakers’ expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness.
The Assessment of Central Route Change Mechanisms (ACRCM) also assessed components necessary for central route attitude change to occur while the Guided Inquiry (GI) determined how individuals perceived and made meaning of their experiences. Finally, Thought Listing (TL) required participants to write down their thoughts throughout the presentation. In addition, the analysts categorized the study into three parts: pretest, posttest, and follow-up. The pretest occurred during the first week of the semester and consisted of participants completing a consent form, the RMA, and the ASB.
Six weeks later, a one-hour rape prevention intervention was presented that included educational material concerning information on the prevalence and impact of rape, a video that depicts both stranger and acquaintance rape survivors who discuss the impact of rape, and a brief question and answer session. The presenter was a woman who had over ten years of experience working with rape prevention programming. Immediately following the presentation, participants were asked to complete the posttest, which consisted of the SRF, ACRCM, RMA, and TL.
In addition, participants also were asked to complete the Gl and return it the following week. Two months after the intervention, the follow-up assessment was conducted that consisted of the RMA and ASB. The quantitative data was analyzed through two tables and one graph, which allowed the researchers to check their hypotheses. The first hypothesis stated that there would be sex differences on Rape Myth Acceptance; this was proven correct because women had lower RMA scores than men at pretest, posttest, and follow-up.
The second hypothesis was not supported by the findings because, although women were consistently lower than men on this scale, both groups showed the same pattern of decreased Adversarial Sexual Beliefs scores from pretest to follow-up. In contrast, the third hypothesis was correct because women rated their motivation and personal relevance of the subject more highly than the men who participated in the study. The fourth hypothesis was also correct because men had higher ratings for the peripheral cues of the presenter’s expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness.
More so, the fifth and sixth hypotheses were both valid because women had more thoughts during the presentation, which were more personal, and males and females did indicate different aspects of the presentation that were more important to them. The only weakness worth noting with this data is the use of self-reports has a tendency for response bias because it is harder for people to be objective in regards to themselves. The researchers conclude that their research provided an abundance information about participants’ internal reactions and attitude change regarding rape.
They discussed the discrepancy with the subjects Rape Myth Acceptance scores after the follow-up assessment. Immediately after the presentation, the RMA results of the sample were low, but at the two-month follow-up, both men’s and women’s scores rebounded, with men’s scores being virtually the same as before the intervention. The investigators concluded that future research would need to be done to assess the long-term impact of rape prevention interventions and reduce the rebound of belief in rape myths.
They also concluded that the intervention had a greater impact and more lasting effect on women’s attitudes rather than on men’s attitudes. The investigators also discussed several limitations of this study. First, they considered that the sample consisted of first-year college students from one university. A more diverse sample is necessary to extend the validity of the study, for example, considering people of different ages, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic status. Furthermore, as there was no control group, the extent to which the attitudes may have been influenced by ongoing events was not assessable.
They concluded that future research would be strengthened by the use of an attention placebo or control group. Overall, this study was well planned and collected valuable information that can help the advancement of rape prevention methods. To improve the study, the researchers could have found another way to obtain data because of response bias related with selfreports. Also, the population could have been more evenly distributed; european Americans accounted for over eighty percent of the population. A more diverse group of people could have given more informative data.
Even so, the population was reasonably sized; it originally consisted of 305 male and female students but was reduced to 257 students because of incomplete questionnaires. This population was more inclusive compared to the previous study the investigators modeled their study after which consisted of thirty, all male participants. The original study failed to incorporate the differences between men and women involving a rape prevention message, and these researchers made sure to include both sexes and even had forty-seven more female participants than male.
Therefore, this investigation will cause those planning psychoeducational programming to carefully consider how to make their interventions relevant to both sexes. The results highlight the importance of long-term influences on attitude change regarding rape and sexual assault. The research was extremely beneficial given the mandate for rape prevention education in all institutions in the United States that receive federal funding. An investigation that examines the efficacy of such programming is not only timely but helpful in reducing the amount of rape and sexual harassment victims in the United States.
