Online survey:
The SRS (Burt, 1980) was used to measure sex role stereotyping. This scale has nine 7-point Likert-type scale items with the anchor points 1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree. An example it is ‘A man should fight when the woman he's with is insulted by another man.’ Possible scores ranged from 9 to 63 (extremely non-traditional to extremely traditional in regard to sex role stereotyping). This scale has a reliability Cronbach's alpha of .80 (Burt, 1980) and convergent validity of .73 (Check & Malamuth, 1984). For our sample, Chronbach’s alpha was .69.
In order to elicit descriptions of rape, we utilised Ryan’s (1998) questions. To establish the rape script, we asked, ‘Can you please describe what you consider to be a “typical rape” in as much detail as possible; include information on what led up to, what happened during and followed the rape. While we realise there is no such thing as a typical rape, and each situation is different, please describe what comes to mind when you hear the word rape.’ We asked, ‘Can you please describe what you consider to be the characteristics of a victim of typical rape in as much detail as possible?’ to establish participants’ thoughts about victims. ‘Typical rape’ was replaced with “typical acquaintance rape” for the second condition.
An opportunity sample of 100 (77 females; aged between 18 and 25 years, M=20.38; SD= 1.39) people from the Bournemouth area (including University students) were recruited for the first sample. A further 100 (79 females; aged between 18 and 25 years, M=20.84; SD= 1.62) participants were recruited for the second part. Participants were recruited through online advertisements on research blogs and social media.