Myths and Stereotypes regarding Child Sexual Abuse

아동 성학대에 대한 신화와 고정관념에 관한 연구

For this study of adolescent attitudes toward child sexual abuse, 200 students attending high school and college participated in a group survey. The Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale (Collings, 1999) was used to measure social attitudes toward child sexual abuse. Overall, the attitudes of the respondents placed between negative and positive attitudes. Nevertheless, strong negative myths and stereotypes, particularly blame diffusion, denial of abusiveness, and restrictive abuse stereotypes were found in specific situations. High school students and male students had more negative myths and stereotypes than college students and female students. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated the variables of education level and gender as the most important predictors in explaining students' attitudes toward child sexual abuse.