Abstract
This study examined Pre-Service Teachers’ (PSTs; N = 92; 75% women, 25% men) tendency to blame students or to feel responsibility when confronted with different vignettes of the sharing of youth produced sexual images. Self-report measures of empathy and rape myth acceptance were collected. Findings showed that PSTs felt more responsible for girl targets depending on the vignette type. Moreover, they blamed the target more in the attention seeking vignette compared to other vignette types. Finally, PSTs who tended to blame the target showed lower levels of empathic concern and higher levels of rape myth acceptance. Implications for teaching education are discussed.
Highlights
With the rise of new technologies, the exchange of sexual material among teenagers has moved to the online space, creating a phenomenon called “sexting”
Consensually self-producing and sharing sexual pictures might allow young people to represent themselves in a sexual way, feel sexy and build their identity, enabling them to fulfill their need for self-expression (Bianchi et al, 2016; Hasinoff, 2015)
There was a negative correlation between attribution of blame and the empathic concern subscale, and the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance scale (IRMA) score, meaning that higher levels of attribution of blame were correlated to lower empathic concern and lower rape myth rejection
Summary
With the rise of new technologies, the exchange of sexual material among teenagers has moved to the online space, creating a phenomenon called “sexting”. The term “youth-produced sexual images” will be used, building on previous work by Wolak and Finkelhor (2011), to refer to the exchange of sexual images that portray semi-nude teenagers that are taken by young people themselves By this we mean photos that were initially ‘self-produced’ unless otherwise stated. Consensually self-producing and sharing sexual pictures might allow young people to represent themselves in a sexual way, feel sexy and build their identity, enabling them to fulfill their need for self-expression (Bianchi et al, 2016; Hasinoff, 2015) This behaviour might contribute to the exploration of sexuality and sexual identity among LGBTQ þ youth.
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