Hear No Evil, See No Evil? Associations of Gender, Trauma History, and Values with Believing Trauma Vignettes

Attitudes and beliefs about sexual assault in general influence judgments about the veracity of specific sexual assault reports and disclosures (Taylor, 2007). The present study investigated the impact of gender, personal trauma history, and beliefs about gender and child sexual abuse (CSA) on judgments of the veracity of CSA disclosures. The study also examined judgments about other kinds of trauma disclosures using a variety of different types of trauma vignettes. Men were found to be more skeptical than women, and those who reported no trauma history were less likely than those who reported a trauma history to believe disclosures. Overall, all participants were more skeptical about CSA disclosures than disclosures about other kinds of trauma. Sexism and belief in CSA myths (CSAMs) were negatively related to believing adults’ retrospective CSA disclosures. In a series of regression analyses, we observed that belief in CSAMs moderated the negative association between sexist attitudes and believing disclosures. Implications for educating professionals are discussed.