NCJ Number
139629
Journal
Violence and Victims Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1992) Pages: 147-155
Date Published
1992
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The Burt scales were administered to a sample of 255 college students in a 3 x 2 x 2 factorial arrangement. The students were asked to rate the credibility of a hypothetical child's allegations of sexual abuse when the accused male denied the abuse.
Abstract
The study was designed to examine the impact of factors including sex role stereotyping, adversarial sexual beliefs, acceptance of interpersonal violence, sex of the subject, characteristics of the child, and characteristics of the alleged perpetrator on judgments of the child witness's credibility. While nearly 80 percent of the entire sample believed the child's allegations, females rated the child's credibility significantly higher than males. Because no other significant relationships were found, the results showed that the respondents tended to believe children's sexual abuse allegations regardless of other factors. The authors note that the dependent variable and the Burt scales had surprisingly truncated ranges, indicating the need for stratified random sampling in future research studies. Future studies should also examine other variables that could affect the credibility of children's allegations of sexual abuse including more circumscribed attitudes toward children and specific properties of the actual allegations. 24 references