Abstract
Sexual aggression perpetration remains a common occurrence on university campuses in the United States. Rape myth acceptance (RMA) is a common target of interventions aimed at reducing sexually aggressive behavior, but the link between RMA and sexual aggression perpetration may be weaker than initially thought. Therefore, it is imperative to identify true causal risk factors of sexual aggression perpetration. Friendships with men and women, empathy, and hostile masculinity were examined as potential predictors of sexual aggression perpetration in university students through their association with RMA over four studies in this dissertation. It was hypothesized that friendships with women and empathy would be negatively associated with RMA and sexual aggression perpetration, and that friendships with men and hostile masculinity would be positively associated with RMA. Empathy was also tested as a potential moderator and mediator of the association between friendships with women and RMA, and hostile masculinity was tested as a mediator of the association between friendships with men and RMA. First, I examined associations between self-reported friendships with men and women, trait empathy, and RMA, as well as the role of empathy in the association between friendships with women cross-sectionally. Second, I further explored the associations between friendships with women, trait empathy, and RMA in a longitudinal study that added sexual aggression perpetration as an outcome. Third, I examined whether mu suppression in response to videos of survivors describing their experiences of sexual aggression victimization, a theorized indicator of state empathy, was associated with self-reported empathy, RMA, and sexual aggression perpetration. Fourth, I shifted focus to test associations between friendships with men, hostile masculinity, and RMA in a cross-sectional sample of university men. Friendships with men and women and hostile masculinity were generally found to be associated with RMA in the expected directions, and friendships with men were found to be indirectly associated with RMA through negative masculinity. There was also preliminary evidence that friendships with women predict sexual aggression perpetration. Evidence for the associations between empathy and RMA and the role of empathy as a mediator or moderator in the association between friendships with women and RMA were mixed. The research described in this dissertation can help guide efforts to identify predictors of RMA and sexual aggression perpetration and suggests that friendships could be promising targets for such work.