Perceived Credibility of Child Sexual Abuse Reporting
Date
2019
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Publisher
Georgia Southern University
Abstract
Description
Understanding factors that could influence attitudes and beliefs regarding child sexual
abuse may inform efforts to educate clinicians, legal and medical personnel, and even the public
on potential sources of bias and barriers to treatment and other service utilization, particularly in
rural communities. The purpose of the current study was to experimentally investigate the impact
of child accuser age and gender and participant rural status on ratings of perceived credibility of
child sexual abuse allegations described in vignettes. With this study, I aimed to not only clarify
and update previous findings on accuser age and gender, but also to expand the literature by
examining interactions of the two, as well as examine the potential relevance of rural status to
perceived credibility of child sexual abuse victims. Three hundred twenty-seven participants
were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were randomly assigned to read and
evaluate one of six versions of a vignette that varied only in terms of child accuser age (6, 11,
and 15 years old) and gender (boy, girl). The study did not find a significant effect of child
accuser age on ratings of perceived credibility, but child accuser gender was found to be
significant in that boys were rated as less credible than girls. Participant rural status was not
significant. Moreover, no significant interactions were found. Theoretical and practical
implications of these findings, as well as study limitations, are discussed.
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Keywords
Child sexual abuse, perceived credibility, rural, gender attitudes