Misogyny, acculturation, and ethnic identity: relation to rape-supportive attitudes in Asian American college men.

Asian Americans have been understudied with respect to sexuality and rape and its contributory factors. Some attitudinal research has shown that Asian American college males tend to hold more rape-supportive beliefs than their White counterparts. Generally, this research treats ethnicity as a proxy for culture rather than examining specific facets of culture per se. The current study incorporated measures of misogynistic beliefs, acculturation, and ethnic identity to investigate these ethnic differences in rape-supportive attitudes. White (n = 222) and Asian American (n = 155) college men read an acquaintance rape vignette and evaluated it on four judgments: how much they blamed the perpetrator and the victim, how credible they viewed the victim's refusal, and to what degree they defined the event as rape. Consistent with previous research, Asian American men made more rape-supportive judgments than Whites. This relationship was partially mediated by misogynistic beliefs for all judgments except the extent to which they defined the vignette as rape. Among Asian Americans, acculturation was negatively associated with all four rape vignette judgments above and beyond generational status, and ethnic identity was positively associated with two of the four judgments above and beyond acculturation and generational status. These findings suggest that cultural constructs are relevant to understanding rape-supportive attitudes among Asian American men, and may be useful for promoting culturally enhanced theoretical models of rape and sexual assault prevention efforts, as well as a deeper understanding of cultural influences on sexuality.