A Psychometric Evaluation of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022) and the Newly Developed Rape Myth Questionnaire

Abstract

Rape myths are false beliefs about rape that blame the victim and excuse the person who committed rape. This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of two rape myth acceptance scales in Serbian culture: the Serbian adaptation of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022) and the newly developed Rape Myth Questionnaire – Short Form (RMQ-S) in Serbian. The sample comprised 601 adults (50.9% men) from the general population of Serbia. The results revealed the five-factor in addition to the bifactor five-factor model as the best solution for the IRMA-S-2022, whereas the RMQ-S showed a one-factor structure. Scores on both instruments were gender invariant, with men obtaining higher scores. Furthermore, the scores showed good reliability based on internal consistency. The high correlation between the two instruments confirmed their convergent validity, as well as positive correlations with hostile sexism and victim culpability. Overall, the results support the reliability and construct validity of both instruments, and indicate that the RMQ-S is a useful nine-item tool, whereas the IRMA-S-2022 offers deeper insights into the acceptance of various subcategories of rape myths.

Keywords

rape myth acceptance Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022)Rape Myth Questionnaire – Short Form (RMQ-S)ambivalent sexism victim culpability

Defining Rape Myth Acceptance and Its Most Common Consequences

Although, various regions of the world differ in terms of the available rape statistics (Nyúl & Kende, 2023), it is still estimated that globally, one in five women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime (Ministry of Justice, Home Office, and Office for National Statistics, 2013; Persson & Dhingra, 2022a; 2022b). Serbia is one of the relatively few countries for which credible data on the prevalence of violence against women are not available due to the absence of reliable research on rape rates on a nationally representative sample (Soković & Ranđelović, 2024). Despite this lack of transparency, many authors hold that Serbia is a society with a widespread presence of interpersonal violence (García-Moreno et al., 2005; Obradović-Tomašević et al., 2019), in which attitudes that tolerate and even promote sexual offenses against women are considered normative (Costa et al., 2024; Uji et al., 2007). Serbia can be described as an anomic, post-war community, (Djikanovic et al., 2010), in which everyday life is fraught with political and economic turbulences. To understand the socio-cultural context of gender-based violence in this country, it is important to keep in mind the key characteristics of the predominantly patriarchal mentality in the Balkans. Traditionalist, rigidly conservative attitudes about gender roles, according to which men are the primary holders of social, economic, and political power, tend to be masked by euphemistic rhetoric glorifying the “traditional family values” (Pirju et al., 2024). A high level of religiousness, unequal division of housework, and hypermasculinity closely related to the idea of male honor (Lomazzi, 2023) constitute but a few of the characteristics of widespread androcentrism (Rangelov, 2016). The obdurate persistence of gender-based violence is fostered by the described value system in conjunction with omnipresent distrust in the state institutions that should provide protection (Soković & Ranđelović, 2024), local communities’ insufficient resources for helping rape victims, and the media’s tendency towards sensationalist and tabloid reporting. Hence, rape constitutes a specific form of sexual violence that positively correlates with the complex constellation of culturally determined beliefs and attitudes which are exceptionally difficult to eradicate, that scientists refer to as rape myths (Chapleau & Oswald, 2013; Zidenberg et al., 2021).

According to the most widely used definition, rape myths are descriptive or prescriptive beliefs about rape (its causes, context, consequences, perpetrators, victims, and their interaction) that serve to deny, downplay, or justify this form of sexual violence (Bohner et al., 1998). Despite the daily proliferation of narratives that undoubtedly indicate widespread rape myth acceptance (RMA) in Serbia, there is a lack of empirical findings on rape myths in this culture due to the absence of psychometrically sound instruments for their evaluation in the Serbian language. Therefore, the aims of the present research included adapting the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022; Thelan & Meadows, 2022), as the latest version of the RMA questionnaire most commonly used worldwide, and constructing the Rape Myth Questionnaire – Short Form (RMQ-S) as a short form of the scale for evaluating RMA in Serbian culture. Findings in the domain of cross-cultural psychology and psychometrics indicate the necessity of culturally and linguistically contextualizing instruments, as phenomena such as gender stereotypes (including rape myths) are greatly determined by the characteristics of the specific community in which they are researched (Fakunmoju et al., 2019; Martini et al., 2022; Skov et al., 2022).

At the individual level, specific rape myths can perform different functions. However, their primary goals are denying that the rape even happened, blaming the victim and absolving the perpetrator (Lyons et al., 2023; Thelan & Meadows, 2022). There is no doubt that sexual victimization of men exists, due to the undeniable fact that most adult rape victims are women, research on gender-based maltreatment has predominantly focused on cases involving female victims and male perpetrators (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994), although RMA is present among both genders (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017; Martini et al., 2022; Nyúl & Kende, 2023). Most existing research has shown that men are generally more prone to adopting rape myths (Morry & Winkler, 2001; Wilson & Scarpa, 2017).

Measurement of Rape Myth Acceptance

Over the past four decades, several RMA measures have been developed. The one-factor Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (RMAS; Burt, 1980) constitutes a pioneering endeavor in the operationalization of victim-blaming and victim-doubting attitudes. However, this scale is plagued by overly direct and explicit item formulations and the use of sexually connoted colloquialisms that are now considered outdated and opaque (e.g., necking). Furthermore, certain statements are excessively long, unnecessarily complex, and made up of more than one idea, which makes their clarity insufficient and their validity consequently questionable (Murray et al., 2023; Thelan & Meadows, 2022).

The next major contribution to measuring RMA is found in the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMA-1999; Payne et al., 1999). Despite this instrument’s excellent reliability (Cronbach’s α = .93, Payne et al., 1999), consistently demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity (McMahon & Farmer, 2011), and overwhelmingly common use, it has drawn criticism similar to that surrounding the RMAS.

Motivated by the limitations of the IRMA-1999, McMahon and Farmer (2011) devised a modified, shorter version of this scale: the Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (uIRMA-2011). Namely, the authors had recognized the need to acknowledge the sociocultural changes that arise in the discourse on sexual violence from time to time, citing participants’ increased awareness of the need to politically correctly respond to blatantly formulated items (PettyJohn et al., 2023). Hence, they eliminated three subscales from the IRMA-1999, linguistically modified certain items to modernize the sexually connotated slang and diminish face validity, and added four new items operationalizing more modern and covert rape myths (McMahon & Farmer, 2011). After these changes, the uIRMA-2011 (Cronbach’s α = .87) comprised 22 items and the authors originally proposed a four-factor structure. The She Asked for It subscale consists of items that reflect the belief that the victim is culpable for the rape, with the victim’s behavior provoking the assault. The It Wasn’t Really Rape factor minimizes the severity of the situation by denying that the rape even happened. The He Didn’t Mean To facet comprises statements that excuse the perpetrator by claiming that the he did not actually have the intention to rape the victim, whereas the She Lied subscale encompasses beliefs according to which victims manufacture claims about sexual violence. Subsequent analyses in the original article led to the extraction of the fifth subscale labeled He Didn’t Mean To (Intoxication Items), suggesting that rape myths that excuse perpetrators based on being in an inebriated state are distinct from rape myths that justify perpetrators by referring to their strong, innate urge for sex, which is impossible to control (McMahon & Farmer, 2011). This instrument has been translated into many languages (Martini et al., 2022; Skov et al., 2022; Xue et al., 2019) and in some cultures (e.g., Hungary and Poland), it has shown the described five-factor structure (Łyśl et al., 2023; Nyúl & Kende, 2023).

Inspired by the previously described critiques of previous measures (Gerger et al., 2007; McMahon & Farmer, 2011; Süssenbach & Bohner, 2011), Thelan and Meadows published the latest version of this instrument – the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022; Thelan & Meadows, 2022). Content-wise, the items encompassed by the IRMA-S-2022 completely correspond to the uIRMA-2011 items. The latest version of the questionnaire features lexical modifications aimed at ensuring the suitability of the scale for participants of different ages and reducing response bias. Thelan and Meadows (2022) concluded that the IRMA-S-2022 operationalized the concept of RMA as effectively as the uIRMA-2011.

As there were no RMA instruments in Serbia, Genc et al. (2018) conducted a pilot study and constructed the Rape Myth Questionnaire (RMQ) to measure rape myths specific to the cultural space of the Balkans. Namely, research has shown that RMA and victim-blaming tendencies are more conspicuous in cultures with pronounced gender inequality, a strictly patriarchal family structure, and deeply rooted traditional gender roles (Milesi et al., 2020). Evidence of gender inequality can also be found in Serbia’s score on the Gender Equality Index (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2021), which constitutes the European Union standard for cross-country comparison of gender equality. The index ranges from 1 to 100, with higher values indicating a higher level of gender equality. Serbia obtained its latest score (Babović & Petrović, 2021) of 58 in 2021, scoring lower than 74.07% of members of the EU and remaining below the European average of 65.31 for the year 2021. When formulating the items of the RMQ, special attention was paid to the socially connoted prejudices that the authors considered particularly characteristic of the Balkan mentality, which pertained to the widespread misconception that malicious, false rape reports are extremely common. Although this preliminary version of the RMQ boasted very high reliability (Cronbach’s α = .96) and relatively concise and precise items, it comprised as many as 60 items that form a single factor. Genc et al. (2018) concluded their pilot study stating that for the sake of response efficiency, future research should focus on shortening this questionnaire and validating it using other scales that measure RMA and related constructs.

Correlates of Rape Myth Acceptance

Research on different RMA correlates that contribute to the emergence and perseverance of rape myths has yielded an impressive global corpus. Studies have consistently reported statistically significant positive correlations between a strong belief in rape myths and the acceptance of traditional, conservative, and misogynistic gender roles (Chapleau & Oswald, 2013), the construct of victim culpability (Dawtry et al., 2019; Murray et al., 2023; Rollero & Tartaglia, 2019), ambivalent sexism (Costa et al., 2024; Ferrao & Goncalves, 2015) and various oppressive ideologies such as xenophobia, racism, machismo, homophobia, and religious intolerance (Canto et al., 2021; PettyJohn et al., 2023).

Ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996) is one of the dominant correlates of RMA and it encompasses two interlinked, complementary, and yet evaluatively different ideologies: hostile and benevolent sexism, both of which serve to justify and preserve the dominance of men over women (Abrams et al., 2003; Khokhlova & Bohner, 2020). Hostile sexism constitutes a set of explicitly antagonistic prejudices toward women, who are perceived as inherently weak and inferior while also being viewed as dangerous seductresses who manipulatively use their sexuality and feminist ideology to achieve control and dominance over men (Bareket & Fiske, 2023). Benevolent sexism idealizes women as morally pure, emotionally warm, nurturing, but essentially helpless beings, which is exactly what makes a woman her man’s “better half” and why she deserves his protection and admiration while also being relegated to conventional gender roles (Bertsch & Matthews, 2023; Łyśl et al., 2023; Rollero & Tartaglia, 2019). Hence, benevolent sexism encompasses seemingly well-intentioned, prosocial, almost chivalrous but still sexist attitudes (Navas et al., 2022; Wilson & Scarpa, 2017).

Thus far, research has shown hostile sexism to be one of the strongest predictors of RMA (Chapleau & Oswald, 2013; Nyúl & Kende, 2023). On the other hand, many studies have also found positive correlations between benevolent sexism and the aforementioned constructs, but the associations have usually been weaker (Bareket & Fiske, 2023; Gerger et al., 2007).

Another dominant correlate of RMA is the construct of victim culpability (Chapleau & Oswald, 2013; Dawtry et al., 2019; Kazmi et al., 2023; Persson & Dhingra, 2021), which refers to the tendency to consider the victim at least partially responsible or even culpable for being raped (Martens et al., 2023). Some authors maintain that RMA can even be viewed as a causal antecedent of sexual offenses (Abrams et al., 2003; Malamuth, 1981; Persson & Dhingra, 2021; Saravia Lalinde et al., 2023; Yapp & Quayle, 2018).

The existing literature is plagued by a lack of consensus when it comes to the conceptualization and operationalization of variables pertaining to attributing guilt to the victim or the person who committed rape, with different authors assessing guilt, blame, responsibility, and more. In line with the recommendations provided by Persson and Dhingra (2022b), this paper uses the phrase victim culpability, which the authors consider to be the most precise.

Research on victim culpability has most commonly employed the vignette design, within which participants are first presented with short scenarios, each containing a description of a rape situation. Subsequently, participants are required to evaluate victim and/or perpetrator culpability by responding to a number of statements.

The Current Study

Although Serbia can be categorized as a country with a high risk of violence against women (Obradović-Tomašević et al., 2019), scientific research on RMA in this country is still in its infancy. To the best of our knowledge, the lengthy, 60-item pilot version of the RMQ constitutes the only existing RMA scale in the Serbian language (Genc et al., 2018). Hence, one of the goals of the present study was to shorten the RMQ and evaluate its psychometric characteristics. According to the results of the systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses (e.g., Rolstad et al., 2011), the length of the instrument negatively affects the response rate – instruments with a larger number of items easily lead to fatigue and loss of motivation to respond. Therefore, contemporary researchers give preference to shorter scales, especially in more extensive studies examining multiple constructs (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017).

Furthermore, to enable the application of the existing, commonly used instruments in other countries, it is necessary to adapt them to the specific cultural context, i.e., language, due to potential cultural differences in the perception of the given phenomenon (Fakunmoju et al., 2019). Therefore, this study also aimed to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of the Serbian adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022.

For both instruments, reliability based on internal consistency was explored, as well as construct validity, which was assessed as both factor and convergent validity. Regarding convergent validity, it was expected for both RMA instruments to show high positive correlations with hostile sexism and victim culpability and a moderate correlation with benevolent sexism (e.g., Bareket & Fiske, 2023; Gerger et al., 2007; Kazmi et al., 2023). The convergent validity of the instruments was further tested via gender differences. In line with previous research (e.g., Morry & Winkler, 2001; Wilson & Scarpa, 2017), we assumed that men would obtain higher scores than women.

Method

Participants and Procedure

The sample (N = 601, see Table 1 for details) was conveniently recruited from the general population of Serbia, via social media networks, using the snowball sampling method. The call for participation was announced on the profiles of the authors and various Facebook groups. The sample size was determined based on recent similar empirical studies (Kazmi et al., 2023; Łyśl et al., 2023; Nyúl & Kende, 2023). No participants were excluded from the sample. Compared to the latest census in Serbia, which encompassed individuals aged 15 and over (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2022; see Table 1), our sample was younger, had a lower rate of participants who only finished elementary school, and a higher rate of participants with an academic degree. The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad (code: 20240221_jP8R). Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to participation in the study.

Table 1.

Sample Characteristics (N = 601).

Sociodemographic Characteristics	Current Sample	Census in Serbia in 2022
Gender
Male	306 (50.9%)	48.62%
Female	294 (48.9%)	51.38%
Other	1 (.02%)
Age	18–70, M = 30.99, SD = 12.33	M = 43.85
Education
Elementary School	7 (1.16%)	24.08%^a
High School	345 (57.40%)	53.08%
Higher Vocational Education	35 (5.82%)	6.05%
Bachelor’s Degree	120 (19.97%)	16.40%^b
Master’s Degree	78 (12.98%)
PhD	16 (2.66%)

^aThe presented percentage is a sum of citizens who have already and are yet to complete elementary education, as well as those who have not completed elementary school.

^bThe presented percentage represents citizens with an academic degree (bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees).

Instruments

Rape Myth Questionnaire – Short Form (RMQ-S)

In order to develop short form of the Rape Myth Questionnaire (RMQ; Genc et al., 2018), item selection was made on the sample from the original study (N = 487). Thus, the original data were reanalyzed. First, out of 60 items, 28 were excluded due to low endorsement (<70%). Although the original study suggested a one-factor solution, a parallel analysis was conducted on the remaining 32 items to ensure the variability of indicators in the final version. The results of the parallel analysis indicated that the five-factor solution was the most suitable. Based on a pattern matrix obtained through the use of principal axis factoring, these factors could be interpreted as follows: (1) false accusations as manipulation or exaggeration; (2) myths about crime places and rapists; (3) myths about sex in intimate relationships; (4) shifting responsibility to alcohol and men’s urges; (5) shifting responsibility to women (see Table A in Supplementary Material). Second, items with the highest loadings on each factor were selected, whereby it was taken into account that the selected items were not redundant (i.e., that the corrected item-total correlation was below .80, see Dinić, 2019). For the factors containing a larger number of items (the first and the second factor), three items with the highest loadings were selected. However, the third-factor item with the highest loading (no. 26) was the only negatively worded item. As negatively worded items can show poor psychometric properties and affect validity (e.g., DiStefano & Motl, 2006) and considering that this was the only negatively worded item, it was omitted. Therefore, for the third factor, the second and the third items were selected as the items with markedly higher loadings compared to others. The fourth and the fifth factors contained a smaller number of items. Thus, only two items were selected from these factors. The selection criteria led to the inclusion of 12 items (see Table A in Supplementary Material) whose factor structure matched the pre-settled five-factor structure (see Table B in Supplementary Material). However, the parallel analysis on these 12 items suggested a one-factor solution (eigenvalues for the first two factors were 4.49 and 1.19 and in the parallel analysis, they were 1.32 and 1.24). Therefore, in the current study, a 12-item version was used as a one-factor solution including various indicators of RMA (loadings ranged from .39 to .71, see Table A in Supplementary Material). Responses were given on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Reliabilities are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Model Fit Indices for the Proposed Models of the Serbian Adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022.

Proposed factor structure	DWLS χ² (df)	CFI	TLI	RMSEA [90%CI]	SRMR
One-Factor	781.91 (209)***	.940	.934	.068 [.063–.073]	.094
Four-Factor	435.14 (203)***	.976	.972	.044 [.038–.049]	.071
Five-Factor	391.48 (199)***	.980	.977	.040 [.034–.046]	.066
Bifactor Four-Factor	341.48 (187)***	.984	.980	.037 [.031–.043]	.068
Bifactor Five-Factor	344.54 (187)***	.984	.980	.037 [.031–.044]	.065

Note. DWLS = diagonally weighted least squares; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; CI = confidence interval; SRMR = standardized root mean square residual.

***p < .001.

Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022; Thelan & Meadows, 2022)

This scale is a linguistic modification of the uIRMA-2011. It contains 22 items (e.g., “When women go out wearing slutty clothes, they are asking for sexual advances from men.”), with a five-point Likert-type scale for responding (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Considering that the authors did not explicitly provide the factor structure of the IRMA-S-2022, based on the structure of the uIRMA-2011, a four-factor or five-factor structure can be assumed (McMahon & Farmer, 2011). For the Serbian adaptation, the back-translation method was employed. Reliabilities are presented in Table 6.

Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996, for the Serbian adaptation see Mihić, 2010)

The ASI encompasses 22 items with responses given on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). The questionnaire measures hostile sexism (openly antagonistic beliefs about women; e.g., “Women seek to gain power by getting control over men.” – 11 items, α = .80, ω = .82) and benevolent sexism (seemingly well-intentioned and supportive attitudes toward women that simultaneously place them in a subordinate position; e.g., “Women should be cherished and protected by men.” – 11 items, α = .75, ω = .77).

Sexual Assault Culpability Measures – Victim Culpability (Persson & Dhingra, 2021; 2022b)

The present study employed three rape scenarios developed within the Sexual Assault Culpability Measures (Persson & Dhingra, 2021; 2022b). Three rape scenarios were presented, varying the degree of acquaintance between the victim and the rapist (stranger, acquaintance, and partner). Following each scenario, participants responded to a set of 11 items divided into three domains: victim blame (the belief that the woman is to blame for the victimization – 4 items), victim responsibility (the belief that the victim’s actions contributed to the sexual assault – 3 items), and victim control (the belief that the victim could have influenced the flow and outcome of the traumatic event – 4 items). The participants responded using a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). The authors emphasized that both three-factor and one-factor structures were acceptable. The parallel analysis suggested a one-factor solution (for the first two factors, eigenvalues were 1.24 and 1.17 for simulated data and 4.99 and 1.15 for the observed data). Thus, one total score is obtained, with higher values indicating greater victim culpability. Alpha reliability was .95 and omega was .95.

Data Analysis

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to evaluate the factor structure of the Serbian adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022. The proposed four-factor and five-factor models were tested, along with the bifactor structure, considering the theoretical arguments that all myths should converge. Given that multivariate normality was violated, a diagonally weighted least squares (DWLS) estimator was used. Model fit was evaluated via several fit indices: the chi-square test, which should be nonsignificant for an acceptable model fit, the comparative fit index (CFI) and the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), which should be between .90 and .95 for acceptable fit and .95 or larger for excellent fit, and the root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), which should be between .08 and .05 for acceptable fit and 0.05 or below for excellent fit (e.g., Hu & Bentler, 1999). Additionally, the one-factor structure of the RMQ-S was tested via the CFA, considering that this should be a short form. To test gender invariance, a multigroup CFA was conducted testing three invariance levels: configural (equal factor structure across genders), metric (equal loadings across genders), and scalar (equal intercepts across genders). Models can be considered equal if Δχ is not significant (when Δdf ≥ 1) and ΔCFI and ΔRMSEA do not reach a difference of ≤.10 and ≤.15, respectively (Chen, 2008). Therefore, comparisons of configural and metric as well as metric and scalar levels were conducted. Cronbach’s alpha and omega coefficients were calculated for all subscales and total scores. Pearson correlations were calculated for validity variables. Finally, gender differences were tested and Cohen’s d was used to evaluate the effect size of these differences, with 0.2 indicating a small effect, 0.5 a medium effect, and 0.8 a large effect size (Cohen, 1988). All analyses were performed in JASP 0.18.3.

All main analyses were prespecified prior to data collection. These data are a part of a research that addressed various predictors of RMA, with the complete data also including other variables (additional 52 items referring to personality traits). The authors take responsibility for the integrity of the data, the accuracy of the data analyses, and have made every effort to avoid inflating statistically significant results.

Results

A Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Gender Measurement Invariance of the Serbian Adaptation of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022)

The results showed that both four-factor and five-factor models had excellent fit indices (Table 2) with nonsignificant ΔCFI and ΔRMSEA, but significant Δχ² (4) = 43.66, p > .001 in favor of the five-factor model. In the five-factor model, the correlation between He Didn’t Mean To and He Didn’t Mean To (Intoxication Items) was .69 and was not the highest between-factor correlation. Considering the high correlations among factors in both four-factor (from .54 to .75) and five-factor models (from .53 to .75), bifactor models were tested. Both bifactor models had excellent and comparable model fit indices. In both bifactor models, some loadings were nonsignificant or low on specific factors (nine items in the four-factor model and six in the five-factor model had a loading ≤.30), whereas three items in both models had a loading ≤.30 on the general factor. In the bifactor four-factor model, five out of six items from the She Asked for It specific factor and three out of six items from the He Didn’t Mean To specific factor had low loadings, whereas in the bifactor five-factor model, four out of six items from the She Asked for It specific factor and one out of six items from the He Didn’t Mean To specific factor had low loadings. All loadings on the He Didn’t Mean To (Intoxication Items) specific factor were adequate. In both models, one item from the It Wasn’t Really Rape specific factor had a low loading. Therefore, the bifactor five-factor model was selected as the better bifactor model, meaning that both scale scores and the total score on the five-factor solution were justified (see Table C Supplementary Material). The homogeneity of the IRMA-S-2022 subscales assessed by the mean inter-item correlation ranged from .32 for the facets of She Asked for It and It Wasn’t Really Rape to .52 for the She Lied subscale.

Table 3.

Gender Measurement Invariance of the Five-Factor Model of the Serbian Adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022.

Measurement Levels	DWLS χ² (df)	CFI	TLI	RMSEA [90%CI]	SRMR	ΔCFI	ΔRMSEA
Configural	499.05 (398)***	.987	.984	.029 [.020–.037]	.072	—	—
Metric	580.86 (415)***	.978	.975	.037 [.029–.043]	.077	.009	−.008
Scalar	643.56 (432)***	.972	.970	.040 [.034–.047]	.077	.006	−.003

***p < .001.

Further validation included gender invariance testing of the five-factor model. The results showed no significant differences in CFI and RMSEA between measurement levels (Table 3), indicating that the Serbian adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022 is gender invariant, meaning that the scores on this instrument have the same meaning across genders and that gender comparisons can be made.

Table 4.

Gender Measurement Invariance of the Nine – Item RMQ-S.

Measurement Levels	DWLS χ² (df)	CFI	TLI	RMSEA [90%CI]	SRMR	ΔCFI	ΔRMSEA
Configural	161.24 (54)***	.935	.913	.081 [.067–.096]	.098	—	—
Metric	181.054 (62)***	.927	.916	.080 [.067–.094]	.102	.008	.000
Scalar	196.57 (70)***	.923	.921	.078 [.065–.091]	.096	.004	.002

***p < .001.

A Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Gender Invariance of the Rape Myth Questionnaire – Short Form (RMQ-S)

The one-factor model on 12 items showed a good model fit, although the SRMR was marginal: χ² (54) = 233.66, p < .001, CFI = .943, TLI = .930, RMSEA = .074, 90% CI .065–.084, SRMR = .092. The results of gender invariance testing showed that metric invariance could not be reached (ΔCFI = .026). In line with the inspection of differences in loadings across genders, we deleted items three and four (referring to shifting responsibility to alcohol and men’s urges) as well as item seven (one of the two myths about sex in intimate relationships), which resulted in a gender-invariant solution (Table 4). Therefore, the final RMQ-S contains nine items. Model fit for this solution was good: χ² (27) = 142.35, p < .001, CFI = .946, TLI = .928, RMSEA = .084, 90% CI .070–.098, SRMR = .091. Factor loadings were in a range of .51–.80 (see Table D in Supplementary Material). The mean inter-item correlation of .36 showed that between-item correlations were sufficient but not high enough to reflect redundancy (for details, see Dinić, 2019).

Table 5.

Gender Differences in the Serbian Adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022 and the RMQ-S.

Scale/Subscale	Women	Men	t (598)	Cohen’s d
Scale/Subscale	M(SD)	M(SD)	t (598)	Cohen’s d
She Asked for It	1.95 (0.77)	2.56 (0.82)	9.37	0.77
He Didn’t Mean To	1.91 (1.04)	2.23 (1.03)	3.88	0.32
He Didn’t Mean To (Intoxication Items)	1.37 (0.63)	1.60 (0.80)	3.93	0.32
It Wasn’t Really Rape	1.44 (0.53)	1.77 (0.73)	6.41	0.52
She Lied	2.20 (0.86)	2.83 (0.90)	8.70	0.71
IRMA-S-2022 Total Average	1.81 (0.57)	2.27 (0.62)	9.51	0.78
RMQ-S	1.76 (0.63)	2.32 (0.75)	10.00	0.82

Note. Average scores are presented within a range of 1–5. All differences were significant at p < .001.

Gender Differences

There were significant gender differences across all IRMA-S-2022 subscales and the total average score as well as in the RMQ-S (Table 5). Men obtained higher scores on all scales and the effects were medium for the IRMA-S-2022 total average score and the She Asked for It, She Lied, and It Wasn’t Really Rape subscales. For the He Didn’t Mean To and He Didn’t Mean To (Intoxication Items) subscales, the differences were small. Cohen’s d was the highest for gender differences on the RMQ-S and it indicated a large effect size.

Table 6.

The Serbian Adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022 and the RMQ-S – Reliability Statistics and Correlations With Validity Measures.

Validity Measures	IRMA-S-2022						RMQ-S
Validity Measures	She Asked for It	He Didn’t Mean To	He Didn’t Mean To (Intoxication Items)	It Wasn’t Really Rape	She Lied	Total Average	RMQ-S
RMQ-S	.70	.48	.53	.55	.66	.80	1
Hostile Sexism	.62	.43	.36	.43	.65	.70	.72
Benevolent Sexism	.30	.24	.17	.15	.23	.30	.28
Rape Victim Culpability	.58	.35	.44	.48	.41	.61	.52
M	2.26	2.07	1.49	1.61	2.52	2.04	2.05
SD	0.86	1.04	0.74	0.67	0.94	0.64	0.75
α	.74	.74	.70	.70	.84	.88	.83
ω	.76	.75	.71	.71	.85	.89	.83

Note. All correlations were significant at p < .001.

Validity Correlations

The correlation between the two instruments’ total scores was high (.80). The RMQ-S showed significant correlations with all IRMA-S-2022 subscales (Table 6), among which the correlations with She Asked for It and She Lied were the highest. Both instruments showed higher correlations with hostile sexism compared to benevolent sexism, with no significant differences in correlations between the instruments (Steiger’s Z was −1.16 for hostile sexism and 0.81 for benevolent sexism; both were nonsignificant). Victim culpability correlated highly with both instruments but there was a significant difference between them (Z = −4.33, p < .001), with the correlation with the IRMA-S-2022 being higher. Correlations between the IRMA-S-2022 subscales were in a range of .26–.61.

Discussion

The main aim of this study was to explore the psychometric properties of two RMA measures in Serbian culture: the Serbian adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022 and the newly developed RMQ-S. The results showed good model fit based on estimated parameters for both the five-factor and bifactor five-factor models of the Serbian adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022. This means that the total score of the IRMA-S-2022 could be used as a general measure of RMA as well as that the scores at the subscale level are meaningful. Likewise, subscale and total scores showed acceptable reliability, considering the number of items. In light of the absence of previous research testing a bifactor structure of the IRMA-S-2022, the results of this study contribute to evidence of its homogeneity and, more importantly, support the relative independence of subscale scores compared to the total score.

Furthermore, the five-factor solution showed a better model fit compared to a four-factor structure, justifying the differentiation between myths that excuse the perpetrator by shifting responsibility to alcohol abuse and distorted beliefs that shift the blame to the uncontrollable nature of men’s sexual urges. Thus, our results are in line with Łyśl et al., 2023; McMahon & Farmer, 2011; Nyúl & Kende, 2023. A plausible explanation for the differentiation of this dimension can lie in the culturally defined social norms according to which Serbian society is traditionally considered to be highly tolerant toward excessive consumption of alcohol, both on special occasions such as various celebrations and in everyday situations (Paković et al., 2019). The pronounced tendency to normalize frequent and excessive drinking (which leads to different forms of disinhibited behavior) can serve as a rationalization for committing the act of rape. Further revisions of the instrument could also include other forms of substance abuse as a justification for rape.

Moreover, the five-factor IRMA-S-2022 is gender invariant, indicating that items have the same meaning across genders and that gender comparisons are justified. The obtained gender differences were expected and in line with previous research (Łyśl et al., 2023; Martini et al., 2022; Rollero & Tartaglia, 2019). Although none of them were large in terms of effect size, the most prominent were the differences in She Asked for It and She Lied as well as in total scores. A higher degree of RMA in men has been consistently confirmed across different cultures: in Hungary (Nyúl & Kende, 2023), Poland (Łyśl et al., 2023), China (Xue et al., 2019), Japan (Uji et al., 2007), Nigeria (Fakunmoju et al., 2019), Pakistan (Kazmi et al., 2023), and other countries. When it comes to men’s greater tendency toward believing in rape myths, especially the ones that shift responsibility to rape victims, it could be explained by men’s greater motivation to preserve the existing gender inequality in insufficiently egalitarian societies with the aim of maintaining their power and control over women (Nyúl & Kende, 2023).

In the case of the RMQ-S, the results support a one-factor structure and good reliability of the total score. To obtain a gender invariant solution, the proposed 12 items were reduced to nine by omitting two items referring to shifting responsibility to alcohol and men’s urges and one item referring to myths about sex in intimate relationships. These items were among the most difficult, i.e. their endorsement was low, especially among women (items’ means were in a range of 1.31–1.44 among women and in a range of 1.50–1.70 among men). Accordingly, the obtained results indicate that men and women differently understood the abovementioned items. A possible interpretation is that women were particularly unlikely to accept these distorted beliefs as all three items (at least implicitly) pertained to justifying the person who committed rape. The existing literature suggests that men are at least somewhat more prone to identifying with the person who committed rape, while women are more likely to identify with the victim (Süssenbach & Bohner, 2011). Moreover, men showed higher scores on RMQ-S, as expected.

The high correlation between the two instruments confirmed the convergent validity of the RMQ-S. Although the RMQ-S showed moderate to high correlations with all IRMA-S-2022 subscales, the highest correlation was with the She Asked for It subscale. This result indicates that the main content of the RMQ-S is the shifting of responsibility to women, emphasizing that their alleged provocative behavior causes men to assault them.

Furthermore, correlations with the remaining convergent validity variables confirmed that both measures showed stronger associations with hostile sexism compared to benevolent sexism. These results are in line with the theory-based expectations and numerous previous findings (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017; Chapleau & Oswald, 2013; Kazmi et al., 2023; Nyúl & Kende, 2023). Hostile sexism reflects flagrant antipathy and openly hostile attitudes toward women as well as the belief that women are weaker than men and not competent enough to perform socially responsible duties and functions. At the same time, women are perceived as dangerous manipulators due to their sexuality that they use against men (Canto et al., 2021; Khokhlova & Bohner, 2020). Such explicitly misogynistic attitudes result in the belief that it is justified and even desirable for men to dominate women using all the resources available to force them into submission. Openly advocating rape myths constitutes one of the ways violence against women is legitimized (Gutierrez & Leaper, 2024; Navas et al., 2022). In the present study, hostile sexism most highly correlated with the She Asked for It and She Lied subscales. The described reasoning of hostile sexists aligns with the content of rape myths according to which victims, due to their irresponsible provocativeness, not only cause rape but deserve it. Hence, hostile sexism justifies at least sporadic aggression of men against women, perceiving it as an “act of self-defense”, whereas the simultaneous presence of a high degree of RMA leads to the denial of the fact that this kind of violence is widespread. Therefore, to level off the logical inconsistencies in their belief system, hostile sexists strongly believe in the false nature of most rape accusations (Canto et al., 2021).

Benevolent sexism refers to seemingly emotionally positively loaded attitudes toward women with no explicit hostility toward them (Nyúl & Kende, 2023), which is why the positive yet relatively low correlation with the degree of RMA comes as no surprise. However, such quasi-affirmative value judgments are exclusively reserved for women who fit into the traditional inferior gender roles such as submissive wives and nurturing mothers (Milesi et al., 2020). Therefore, benevolent sexists categorize women as “good” if they conform to patriarchy and hence deserve the protection of dominant men and “bad” if they exhibit unconventional, disobedient, or excessively liberal behavior that merits contempt or even victimization (Gutierrez & Leaper, 2024). Accordingly, benevolent sexism promotes a sociocultural climate that fosters explicit hostile sexism, at least towards certain subcategories of women, preserving the status quo in the patriarchal distribution of power among genders (Abrams et al., 2003; Persson & Dhingra, 2022b).

The results showed relatively high correlations between victim culpability values and both instruments, further confirming their convergent validity. Victim culpability refers to the worldwide tendency to consider the victim of a certain crime responsible and guilty for the experienced violence and retrospectively attribute an irrationally high level of control over the traumatic event to them. Such an inhumane attitude toward victims is most conspicuous in cases of rape (Martens et al., 2023; Persson & Dhingra, 2021). Understanding the concept of victim culpability with the presence of a high degree of RMA is extremely important due to their real-world consequences, which manifest in unjust court rulings, flawed public policies, and secondary victimization, dehumanization, and stigmatization of rape victims, both by men and women, which significantly contributes to the disproportionately low rape report rates (Dawtry et al., 2019; Ferrao & Goncalves, 2015; Martens et al., 2023). According to international estimates, only 15-24% of women decide to report rape to the police (Ferrao & Goncalves, 2015; Persson & Dhingra, 2022a). This low tendency towards officially reporting rape has been shown to positively correlate with a higher degree of RMA in the female subpopulation (Łyśl et al., 2023).

Research has confirmed positive associations between RMA and the tendency to view the victim’s characteristics and/or actions as the main, if not the only, cause of rape (Abrams et al., 2003; Dawtry et al., 2019; Kazmi et al., 2023). In addition, the correlation between the victim culpability score and IRMA-S-2022 is higher, compared to its correlation with RMQ-S. Among the IRMA-S-2022 subscales, She Asked for It most highly correlated with the total victim culpability score. Furthermore, the result showed that the He Didn’t Mean To subscale had the lowest correlation, although still moderately high. Namely, content-wise, this subscale does not focus on the victim’s qualities and behavior, but instead, encompasses myths that serve to justify the person who committed rape, resting upon the delusion that men simply cannot control their sexual urges.

Empirical evidence on relationships between RMA on the one hand and ambivalent sexism and victim culpability on the other predominantly originate from the US and other Western countries, which boast a higher level of gender equality compared to the Balkans (Bendixen & Kennair, 2017). In 2021, the Gender Equality Index for Serbia was 58, that is, below the European average (Babović & Petrović, 2021; European Institute for Gender Equality et al., 2021). However, in the past several years, an increasing number of studies have examined the relations between the aforementioned constructs in countries such as Poland, Hungary, and Russia, which are more similar to Serbia in terms of the level of gender equality and other sociocultural norms (Khokhlova & Bohner, 2020; Łyśl et al., 2023; Nyúl & Kende, 2023). Hence, the present research significantly contributes to this contemporary global trend. The presented results suggest that hostile sexism and victim culpability constitute equally important correlates of RMA in Serbia as in many Western cultures.

Strengths and Limitations

One of the key strengths of this research is that it validated not one but two highly reliable rape myth acceptance scales in the Serbian language. Considering the fact that in the Serbian language, there was not a single measure evaluating this construct, the conditions have now been met to investigate false beliefs about sexual violence, especially due to research on this subject being practically nonexistent in this region. Having in mind the data indicating that Serbia can be categorized as a country with a relatively high risk of women’s sexual victimization (Obradović-Tomašević et al., 2019) and that the Gender Equality Index for this country is lower compared to the European average (Babović & Petrović, 2021; European Institute for Gender Equality et al., 2021), examining RMA in relation to other oppressive beliefs such as ambivalent sexism and victim-blaming tendencies can provide a deeper insight into culturally relevant attitudes and norms related to gender roles. As most of the studies in this domain are still conducted in the US and other Western cultures, the Serbian adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022 as the latest version of this most commonly used instrument for measuring RMA opens up the possibility to conduct future cross-cultural research. Global comparability can be increased by examining the psychometric properties of the same instrument in different cultures (because of differences in the understanding of rape myths and related phenomena across various cultures) and by providing additional validity and reliability evidence (Fakunmoju et al., 2019; Nyúl & Kende, 2023; Skov et al., 2022). Furthermore, the construction of the RMQ-S now allows researchers to conduct extensive studies examining rape myths in a more time-efficient and psychometrically refined manner. It would be useful to test this new instrument across countries to enable cross-cultural comparisons, because without international validations, interpretations of results obtained by employing instruments in different cultures are often met with understandable skepticism (Fakunmoju et al., 2019; Martini et al., 2022).

Along with the abovementioned strengths, it is necessary to address certain limitations of the present study. First, all data were collected using self-report measures, which could potentially inflate validity correlations due to common method bias. Second, having in mind the sensitivity of the topic, social desirability responding cannot be ruled out. Thus, future research could use measures of this response bias to test changes of scores. Furthermore, future studies could include qualitative data, considering that in some studies, RMA was higher when assessed in focus groups and individual interviews compared to self-report measures (McMahon, 2007). Likewise, socially desirable responding tends to be relatively rare when using qualitative techniques (McMahon, 2007; Zidenberg et al., 2021). Third, the sample was convenient, comprising younger and more educated participants compared to the general population of Serbia. Thus, the generalizability of the results is limited. However, most existing RMA validation studies have generally been conducted on disproportionately female student samples (Frazier & Gonzales, 2022; PettyJohn et al., 2023). The current study recruited a more diverse, gender-balanced sample from the general population of Serbia, encompassing participants with a wider age span and varying levels of education. Although the sample in this study was not fully representative of the population of Serbia, it was heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, and education. Fourth, the cross-sectional nature of the study design precludes drawing reliable causal conclusions. Future experimental research could provide a clearer picture of the nature of the examined relations and longitudinal studies would help illuminate the rape myth development process. Fifth, although this study demonstrated the excellent convergent validity of both RMA scales, future research should also examine their discriminant validity. Finally, the application of the IRMA-S-2022 and the RMQ-S on a sample of persons convicted of sex offences would significantly contribute to further establishing the criterion validity of these scales as well as devising and evaluating the effectiveness of the much-needed empirically based interventions aimed at preventing sexual violence in Serbia.

Conclusion

In sum, the results support the construct validity and the reliability based on internal consistency of both instruments, the Serbian adaptation of the IRMA-S-2022 and the RMQ-S. The key advantage of the RMQ-S lies in its economical, short form of only nine items, which is easy to use in various research contexts that require a general RMA measure. On the other hand, the RMQ-S is unidimensional, which is why the use of the IRMA-S-22 is recommended for studies that require registering different subtypes of RMA.

Among the IRMA-S-2022 subscales, She Asked for It and She Lied emerged as the most prominent types of rape myths. In this sample, participants most readily accepted rape myths from the She Lied subscale, which points to the prevalence of the false belief that a significant percentage of rape accusations has been maliciously fabricated by women, with potential motives for allegedly false accusations being revenge, retroactive regret about consenting to sex, mere attention-seeking, anger, or even misandry (Genc et al., 2018). Another category that was moderately widespread in this sample comprised myths encompassed by the She Asked for It dimension, which describes delusions according to which women who behave “improperly” deserve to be sexually assaulted. The analysis of the described rape myths content revealed an intriguing regularity. Namely, both of the abovementioned dimensions solely focus on rape victims, thus diverting the entirety of the blame for this crime to the victims’ alleged manipulativeness, maliciousness, and improper conduct. On the other hand, rape myths focusing on absolving the perpetrator and trivializing the act of rape were less accepted. The described results align with observations regarding the widespread nature of certain myths encompassed by the RMQ-S. Namely, the most common misconceptions pertained to frequent false accusations and women’s tendency to intentionally falsely interpret men’s harmless behavior. In accordance with this conclusion, it would be beneficial if rape myth prevention programs primarily focused on altering victim-blaming attitudes.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - A Psychometric Evaluation of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022) and the Newly Developed Rape Myth Questionnaire – Short Form (RMQ-S) in Serbian Culture(Djikanovic et al., 2010)

Supplemental Material for A Psychometric Evaluation of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale – Subtle Version (IRMA-S-2022) and the Newly Developed Rape Myth Questionnaire – Short Form (RMQ-S) in Serbian Culture by Ana Genc, Damjan Kopilović, and Bojana M. Dinić in Clinical Practice in Sexual Abuse

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

CRediT Authorship Contribution

Ana Genc: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Project Administration, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing. Damjan Kopilović: Conceptualization, Investigation, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft preparation. Bojana M. Dinić. Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis and investigation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing.

Ethical Statement

ORCID iD

Ana Genc

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on request.*

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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