Male sexual assault is an understudied area. Interventions aimed at reducing negative attitudes toward male survivors have received relatively little attention in the field of sexual assault and violence. This may be related to underreported or insufficient data on male survivors or possibly the acceptance of male rape myths. The current research examines the effect of a hypothetical male sexual assault survivor story and empathy writing task on changes in male rape myth acceptance (MRMA) among U.S. men and women (N = 95). Further, the researchers sought to understand the differences between men and women in MRMA change scores and state emotional empathy for the hypothetical survivor after the empathy induction. Finally, the researchers examined whether state emotional empathy would predict reductions in MRMA and whether participant sex would predict state emotional empathy for the hypothetical survivor after accounting for knowing a male survivor and preinduction MRMA. The results indicated that both men and women experienced significant decreases in MRMA postinduction, and men and women experienced similar levels of change. Additionally, state emotional empathy and preinduction MRMA were the only significant predictors of change scores. Although women reported higher state emotional empathy for the hypothetical survivor, sex was not a significant predictor of state emotional empathy after accounting for personally knowing a male survivor and preinduction MRMA. This research fills a gap in the literature by identifying men’s stories of sexual assault and empathy writing as potential methods to reduce MRMA.

男性性侵犯是一个未被充分研究的领域。旨在减少对男性幸存者的负面态度的干预措施在性侵犯和暴力领域受到的关注相对较少。这可能与男性幸存者的数据报告不足或不足有关，或者可能与接受男性强奸神话有关。目前的研究考察了假设的男性性侵犯幸存者故事和移情写作任务对美国男性和女性男性强奸神话接受度 (MRMA) 变化的影响 ( N= 95)。此外，研究人员还试图了解男性和女性在 MRMA 变化分数方面的差异，以及在移情诱导后对假设幸存者的情感移情。最后，研究人员检查了状态情感同理心是否会预测 MRMA 的减少，以及参与者性别是否会在考虑了解男性幸存者和诱导前 MRMA 后预测假设幸存者的状态情感同理心。结果表明，男性和女性的 MRMA 诱导后显着下降，男性和女性的变化水平相似。此外，状态情感同理心和诱导前 MRMA 是变化分数的唯一显着预测因子。尽管女性对假设的幸存者表示更高的情感同理心，在考虑到个人认识一名男性幸存者和诱导前 MRMA 后，性别并不是状态情感同理心的重要预测因素。这项研究通过将男性的性侵犯故事和移情写作确定为减少 MRMA 的潜在方法，填补了文献中的空白。