Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale (Collings et al., 2009)

• Populations: Adolescents and young adults in South Korea, Sweden, and South Africa
• Age ranges: Age range not reported; All Samples M(SD): 16.49 (.50) ; 22.83 (4.64) ; 16.99 (1.25) ; 23.55 (2.27) ; 26.93 (7.48)
• Languages: English, Swedish, Korean
• Countries: South Africa; South Korea; Sweden

Items

Blame Diffusion 

• Children who do not report ongoing sexual abuse must want the sexual contact to continue.
• Many children have an unconscious wish to be sexually involved with the opposite sexed parent, which leads them to unconsciously behave in ways that make sexual abuse more likely.
• Adolescent girls who wear very revealing clothing are asking to be sexually abused.
• A woman who does not satisfy her partner sexually must bear some of the responsibility if her partner feels frustrated and turns to her children for sexual satisfaction.
• Children raised by gay or lesbian couples face a greater risk of being sexually abused than children raised by heterosexual couples

Denial of Abusiveness 

• Sexual contact between an adult and a child that does not involve force or coercion and that does not involve actual or attempted intercourse is unlikely to have serious consequences for the child.
• Sexual contact with an adult can contribute favourably to a child’s subsequent psychosexual development.
• Children who act in a seductive manner must be seen as being at least partly to blame if an adult responds to them in a sexual way.
• Sexual contact between an adult and a child which is wanted by the child and which is physically pleasurable for the child cannot really be described as abuse.
• Older children, who have a better understanding of sexual matters, have a responsibility to actively resist sexual advances made by adults.

Restrictive Stereotypes

• It is not sexual contact with adults that is harmful for children. What is really damaging for the child is the social stigma that develops after the “secret” is out.
• Child sexual abuse takes place mainly in poor, disorganized, unstable families.
• Child sexual abuse is caused by social problems such as unemployment, poverty and alcohol abuse.
• Most children are sexually abused by strangers or by someone who is not well known to the child.
• Boys are more likely than girls to enjoy sexual contact with adults and are therefore less likely to be emotionally traumatized by the experience.

Scoring

The CSAMS is a 15-item self-report measure of child sexual abuse myth acceptance which is scored using a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree,5= strongly agree), with higher scores indi- cating a greater acceptance of abuse related myths and stereo- types. In the South African validation sample, the CSAMS was found to yield three factor scores: Blame Diffusion, Denial of Abusiveness, and Restrictive Stereotypes. Work with the CSAMS indicates reasonable internal consistency (Cronbach alpha = .76), adequate test-retest reliability (.87 at four weeks), and acceptable levels of convergent and discriminant validity (Collings, 1997)

Citations

Steven J. Collings, Lotten Lindblom, Sylvester N. Madu & Myung Sook Park (2009) The Cross-Cultural Validity of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale: A Preliminary Investigation, Journal of Psychology in Africa, 19:1, 9-17, DOI: 10.1080/14330237.2009.10820253