Psikiyatride Güncel Yaklaşımlar (Dec 2021)
Empathy and Sexism as Predictors of Childhood Sexual Abuse Myths in University Students
Abstract
Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is one of the situations that can negatively affect the emotional, mental and social life of the child. Myths that determine adults' perspectives on CSA may cause the child to experience a new trauma after sexual abuse. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether sexism and empathy variables predict childhood sexual abuse myths and whether CSA myths differentiate based on gender. Participants consist of students of a state university in Turkey. In this study, Toronto Empathy Questionnaire, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, and Childhood Sexual Abuse Myth Scale were used to collect data. Multiple regression analysis method and independent samples t test were used for statistical analysis. Multiple regression results show that there is a meaningful relation between CSA myths and sexism (benevolent and hostile dimensions) and empathy variables (R = .36, R2 = .13, p = .00). The combination of sexism and empathy variables explains 13% of total variance in students’ CSA myths. Moreover, in this study, it was determined that women had fewer myths than men. These results suggest that prevention studies at an individual level are not sufficient to prevent child sexual abuse or treat victims appropriately, and it proves that studies on a social level is absolutely necessary. In this respect, further studies may examine the effects of trainings about these variables on the embracing CSA myths.
