Validating the Male Rape Myth Scale – Shortened Version (MRMS-SV): Examining Melanson’s Original Factorial Structure Among a Large Nationally Representative Sample of the UK

Weare, Siobhan; Willmott, Dominic

doi:10.1177/10608265251338778

Validating the Male Rape Myth Scale – Shortened Version (MRMS-SV): Examining Melanson’s Original Factorial Structure Among a Large Nationally Representative Sample of the UK

StatusVoR

Dublin Core metadata

Authors

Weare, Siobhan

Willmott, Dominic

Date

2026-03-01

Journal title

The Journal of Men’s Studies

Issue

1

Volume

34

Pages

29-44

DOI

10.1177/10608265251338778

ISSN

1060-8265

Weblink

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10608265251338778

Access date

2026-03-01

Abstract EN

Despite extensive use in research assessing myths around male sexual victimization, the factorial structure of Melanson’s 1999 Male Rape Myth Scale [MRMS] was never psychometrically validated, meaning the relevance of scale items and dimensionality remained untested. Recruiting a nationally representative sample of 4152 UK adults, dimensionality and construct validity of the 22-item MRMS and a modified 19-item shortened version (MRMS-SV) were investigated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Analysis was conducted separately for the complete, male only (n = 2006), and female only (n = 2146) samples. Results indicate scores are best captured by a unidimensional solution across all samples tested, using the modified 19-item MRMS-SV version. Excellent internal reliability was observed among each sample. Research using the MRMS-SV can be confident in the scale’s unidimensional validity.

Keywords EN

male rape myth scale [MRMS]
male rape myth scale – shortened version [MRMS-SV]
rape attitudes
male victim-survivors
confirmatory factor analysis
composite reliability