SEX-DIFFERENCES IN THE PERCEIVED CAUSAL-STRUCTURE OF DATE RAPE - A PRELIMINARY-REPORT

The present study examines the perceived causes of date rape by the us e of network analysis, The 142 subjects in the study were presented wi th grids containing 9 causes listed by row and column, They were asked to indicate if they believed there was a causal link between each of the 72 causal pairings. The resulting network placed emphasis on male and female drunkenness, norms of dating, and society's attitude to dat e rape as distal causes of date rape. Misunderstanding of behavior by men, male attitude that date rape is unimportant, and need by males fo r dominance were seen as proximal causes, Further networks for each se x were constructed; these showed clear division of opinion on the caus es of date rape. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.