Rape myths, beliefs that justify sexual violence: a systematic review

In social research, there is an important line of studies that try to understand the phenomenon of sexual violence. A construct that has focused the interest of not a few researchers corresponds to that of "rape myths". This concept brings together a set of erroneous beliefs regarding the attribution of guilt of the aggressor and the responsibility of the victim in case of rape. The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review of empirical studies that have reported evidence about the relationship between the acceptance of rape myths and psychosocial variables. The databases consulted were, ProQuest, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, EBSCOhost, JSTOR. We selected empirical studies in Spanish and English that have been published between 2009 and 2019. We found 96 articles that met the selection criteria. Within the results, 63.4% of the studies have been developed in the United States, 24.7% in European countries and only one in Latin America (1.0%). The findings show that men maintain the highest levels of acceptance of rape myths in most studies. In addition, relationships have been found with variables such as interpersonal violence and sexual violence, personality traits, ideological, psychosocial, sexual and gender variables. Finally, its implications and limitations are discussed.