Moral bias toward different social classes

The influence of social class on prosocial behaviour has long been a focus of intense research interest. The present research involved four studies that covered four moral exemplars (villains, victims, heroes, and beneficiaries) to test whether people of different social classes are treated equally in moral judgements. We described moral events experienced by different agents of varying social classes and asked participants to rate the morality of the events and their emotional responses. The results revealed that compared with the low-class condition, high-class individuals had an overall moral disadvantage when they were regarded as villains, victims, and beneficiaries. For the exemplar of hero, the high-class condition was no different from the low-class condition except that high-class heroes evoked less elevation than low-class heroes. The results reveal that people hold a biased moral attitude toward individuals in different social classes.     

Effects of Victim Gender and Sexuality on Attributions of Blame to Rape Victims

Previous research suggests that homosexual male rape victims receive more blame than heterosexual victims. In this study, we examined effects of victim gender and sexuality on judgments of victims of stranger rape by a male perpetrator. Participants read a rape vignette in which victim gender and sexuality varied, and then rated the amount of blame they attributed to the perpetrator and victim. Victims were attributed more blame if their sexual orientation suggested potential attraction to the perpetrator: gay men and heterosexual women received more blame than did lesbians and heterosexual men. Further, homophobic attitudes toward gay male victims increased the blame attributed to them: perpetrators of rape of gay men were seen as least responsible for their actions, and the character of gay male victims was seen to be a stronger contributory factor than it was for other victims.     

The Moderating Influence of Homophobia and Gender‐Role Traditionality on Perceptions of Male Rape Victims1

This study investigated the influence of homophobia and gender‐role traditionality (GRT) on perceptions of male rape victims. Victims were assigned more blame in acquaintance rape than in stranger rape, and homosexual victims were blamed more than were heterosexual victims. Homophobia predicted patterns in rape minimization only when the victim was homosexual. Homophobia also predicted patterns of victim blame attribution in both homosexual and heterosexual victims, with a greater impact when the victim was homosexual. GRT predicted patterns of rape minimization in acquaintance rape, but not in stranger rape; and GRT did not predict differences in victim blame attribution.     

Blame for constitutivists: Kantian constitutivism and the victim’s special standing to complain

Constitutivists about moral norms are often suspected of providing an overly “self-centered” account of morality which does not take seriously enough morality’s interpersonal nature. This worry seems particularly pressing in the light of recent debates about the relational character of many moral norms. In this paper, I discuss one aspect of this worry, which concerns the special standing to complain which the victims of wrongdoing have. I argue that, contrary to appearances, Kantian constitutivism can explain this latter feature, since there is a special need for remedying the denial of equal moral standing of the victim and the impairment of the victim’s agency which any wrongdoing involves.     

Blame attribution in sexual victimization

The current study explored how victims and third-parties attribute blame and perpetrator motivation for actual sexual victimization experiences. Although we do not assert that victims are responsible for perpetrators’ behavior, we found that some victims do not allocate all blame to their perpetrator. We sought to examine how victims and third-parties allocate blame in instances of actual completed and attempted sexual victimization and how they perceived perpetrator motivations. Victims of completed rape (n = 49) and attempted sexual assault (n = 91), and third-parties who knew a victim of sexual assault (n = 152) allocated blame across multiple targets: perpetrator, self/victim, friends, family, and the situation. Participants also described their perceptions of perpetrator’s motivation for the sexual assault. Victims tended to assign more blame to themselves than third-parties assigned to victims. Furthermore, victims perceived perpetrators as being more sexually-motivated than third-parties did, who viewed perpetrators as more power-motivated. Results suggest that perceptions of rape and sexual assault significantly differ between victims and third-party individuals who have never directly experienced such a trauma.     

Social Perception of Rape Victims in Dating and Married Relationships: The Role of Perpetrator’s Benevolent Sexism

Two hypothetical scenario studies examined how situational, perpetrator, and observer factors affect blame towards rape victims. In Study 1, Spanish high school students (N?=?206) read about a rape committed by a boyfriend or husband who was described as benevolently sexist or not. Study 2 (N?=?201 British college students) replicated and extended Study 1 by adding a condition in which the rapist was described as a hostile sexist. In both studies, participants’ benevolent sexism scores predicted more victim blame when the rapist was described as a husband (but not a boyfriend) who held benevolently sexist attitudes. Study 2 showed that participants’ hostile sexism scores predicted more victim blame when the rapist was described as a hostile sexist.     

Blame After Forgiveness

When a wrongdoing occurs, victims, barring special circumstance, can aptly forgive their wrongdoers, receive apologies, and be paid reparations. It is also uncontroversial, in the usual circumstances, that wronged parties can aptly blame their wrongdoer. But controversy arises when we consider blame from third-parties after the victim has forgiven. At times it seems that wronged parties can make blame inapt through forgiveness. If third parties blame anyway, it often appears the victim is justified in protesting. “But I forgave him!” In other cases, however, forgiveness seems irrelevant: B can forgive A, but it can still seem that third parties can aptly blame A for the wrong against B. This perplexity adds a dimension to ongoing discussion regarding criteria for apt blame and the related issues of standing and fittingness. This paper explores the status of third party blame after forgiveness. I argue that while post forgiveness blame is often inapt, in many other cases forgiveness is irrelevant. This difference is explained by appeal to the various relationships third parties might have to wronged parties, and how these differences affect the ways we blame and thereby blame’s aptness.     

人际关系对青少年道德思维方式的影响*

为考察人际关系对不同年龄段青少年道德思维方式的影响,以机车道德两难困境为材料,采用2（计划路线受害者：亲人、陌生人）×2（非计划路线受害者：亲人、陌生人）×4（年级：小学、初中、高中、大学）被试间实验设计。结果发现,计划路线受害者和非计划路线受害者人际关系的交互作用显著,计划路线受害者为陌生人时,被试在非计划路线受害者为亲人时采用规则导向的思维方式,陌生人时则采用结果导向的思维方式;当非计划路线受害者为亲人时,被试在计划路线受害者为亲人时采用结果导向的思维方式,陌生人时采用规则导向的思维方式。年级与计划路线受害者的交互作用显著。研究支持了道德社会关系规则理论,个体的道德思维方式受到道德情境中人际关系的影响。人际关系对青少年道德思维方式的影响随着年级升高而增强,转折点在初二与高二之间。     

Rethinking ‘Don't Blame the Victim’

SUMMARY

The psychology of victims and the dynamics of victimhood have been largely ignored by scholars and clinicians. While in past years the tendency has been to blame victims, more recently the tide has turned. It is now politically incorrect to explore the role of victims in violent systems, as exploring the psychology of victims has become synonymous with blaming the victim. While shying away from blame, this article will explore the familial and cultural origins of victimhood, victims' characteristics, their relationships with the perpetrators, and it will offer a victim typology. As we move from btame to a more complex understanding of violent systems, the perpetuation of these systems in our culture, and the role victims play in these systems, we provide ourselves with better tools to predict and prevent further victimization.     

Responsibility for Health and Blaming Victims

If we are responsible for taking care of our health, are we blameworthy when we become sick because we failed to meet that responsibility? Or is it immoral to blame the victim of sickness? A moral perspective that is sensitive to therapeutic concerns will downplay blame, but banishing all blame is neither feasible nor desirable. We need to understand the ambiguities surrounding moral responsibility in four contexts: (1) preventing sickness, (2) assigning financial liabilities for health care costs, (3) giving meaning to human suffering, and (4) interacting with health care professionals. We also need to distinguish different kinds of blame, explore the interplay of justice and compassion in avoiding unjustified blaming of victims, and work toward a unified moral-therapeutic perspective that encourages individuals to accept responsibility while avoiding destructive forms of blaming.     

Can happy mood reduce the just world bias? Affective influences on blaming the victim

Do temporary moods influence people's tendency to blame victims for undeserved negative events? Based on research on the just world effect and recent affect theories, this experiment predicted and found that positive mood decreased and negative mood increased people's motivation to blame innocent victims for their misadventures. Participants (N = 70) were induced into positive or negative mood by viewing films, and subsequently read a newspaper article describing a random assault on either a fellow student (in-group member) or a corporate employee (out-group member). Their reactions were assessed on three measures: attributions of responsibility, dissociation from the victim and character evaluations. Positive mood reduced and negative mood increased the tendency to blame the victim, and in-group victims were blamed more than out-group victims. These results are discussed in terms of recent theories of affect and motivation, and their implications for real-life social judgments are considered.     

A Unified Account of the Moral Standing to Blame

Recently, philosophers have turned their attention to the question, not when a given agent is blameworthy for what she does, but when a further agent has the moral standing to blame her for what she does. Philosophers have proposed at least four conditions on having “moral standing”: 1. One's blame would not be “hypocritical”. 2. One is not oneself “involved in” the target agent's wrongdoing. 3. One is warranted in believing that the target is indeed blameworthy for the wrongdoing. 4. The target's wrongdoing is some of “one's business”. These conditions are often proposed as both conditions on one and the same thing, and as marking fundamentally different ways of “losing standing”. Here I call these claims into question. First, I claim that conditions (3) and (4) are simply conditions on different things than are conditions (1) and (2). Second, I argue that condition (2) reduces to condition (1): when “involvement” removes someone's standing to blame, it does so only by indicating something further about that agent, viz., that he or she lacks commitment to the values that condemn the wrongdoer's action. The result: after we clarify the nature of the non‐hypocrisy condition, we will have a unified account of moral standing to blame. Issues also discussed: whether standing can ever be regained, the relationship between standing and our “moral fragility”, the difference between mere inconsistency and hypocrisy, and whether a condition of standing might be derived from deeper facts about the “equality of persons”.     

The Effect of Victims' Social Support on Attributions of Blame in Female and Male Rape

The effects of perceived social support of the victim, victim gender, and participant gender on attributions of blame in rape were examined. The impact of attitudes toward gender roles was also investigated for their mediational role between participant gender and blame. Participants ( N= 121) read a report of an incident of rape and evaluated the victim and the perpetrator. Two ANOVAs showed that social support and participant gender influenced blame attributed to the victim, while victim gender influenced blame attributed to the perpetrator. Socially supported victims were blamed less than were unsupported victims. Men were more blaming of rape victims than were women, but further analyses showed this was mediated by attitudes toward gender roles. Men held significantly more traditional attitudes toward gender roles than did women, and this accounted for the effect of participant gender on victim perceptions. The perpetrator of male rape was blamed less than the perpetrator of female rape. Findings are discussed in terms of the differential attributional mechanisms that may underpin men's and women's reasoning about different types of rape.     

Bullying and its association with altruism toward victims,blaming the victims,and classroom prevalence of bystander behaviors: a multilevel analysis

With reference to social-ecological, self-determination, attributional, and social cognitive theories, the current study examined whether gender, age, altruistic motivation to defend victims, and tendency to blame the victims, at the individual level, and the prevalence of reinforcing and defending, at the classroom level, were associated with bullying. A sample of 901 Swedish students (9–13 years old, M?=?11.00, SD?=?.83) from 43 classrooms filled out a questionnaire. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that the perpetration of bullying was positively associated with the prevalence of reinforcing at the classroom level and blaming the victims at the individual level, whereas it was negatively associated with altruistic motivation to defend victims of bullying at the individual level. Furthermore, students with high altruistic motivation to defend victims of bullying were less inclined to bully, independent of the classroom level of reinforcing. The current study suggests that bullying prevention and intervention programs should: explicitly target bystander behaviors, in particular to reduce the prevalence of reinforcing bullying; include efforts to strengthen altruistic self-concept and motivation to defend victims; and prevent, challenge, and counteract tendencies among students to blame the victim.     

Torture and judgments of guilt

Although torture can establish guilt through confession, how are judgments of guilt made when tortured suspects do not confess? We suggest that perceived guilt is based inappropriately upon how much pain suspects appear to suffer during torture. Two psychological theories provide competing predictions about the link between pain and perceived blame: cognitive dissonance, which links pain to blame, and moral typecasting, which links pain to innocence. We hypothesized that dissonance might characterize the relationship between torture and blame for those close to the torture, while moral typecasting might characterize this relationship for those more distant from it. Accordingly, this experiment placed participants into one of two different roles in which people may be exposed to torture. Participants in the proximal role of prison staffer saw suffering torture victims as relatively more guilty, while participants in the relatively distant role of a radio listener saw suffering victims as more innocent.     

Police officers’ judgements of blame in family violence: The impact of gender and alcohol

This study investigated police officers‘ judgements of blame to both victims and assailants of family violence. Furthermore, the impact of these judgements on the reported likelihood of charging the assailants with assault was examined. The sample was selected from operational police officers of the Queensland Police Service. The sample included 51 male officers and 46 female officers. Ethnicity was not examined. However; 1.3% of police oficers identify as Indigenous and 5.8% of officers come from non-English speaking backgrounds. The subjects were presented with one of eight case vignettes of assault. In these vignettes two factors were varied, the victim gender (male and female), and alcohol consumption of the victim and assailant (both the assailant and the victim were drunk, neither were drunk, the assailant was sober and the victim drunk, and the assailant was drunk and the victim sober). A third independent variable was included, gender of the police officer Male and female police officers showed no differences in judgement of blame and reported likelihood of charging. However; the level of blame attributed to both the assailant and the victim vaned with the victim gender and the alcohol consumption of the disputants. Male victims were more likely to be blamed than female victims. Drunk victims were blamed more than sober victims. Furthermore,a relationship was found between the level of blame allocated to the victim and the reported likelihood of charging the assailant. These results indicate that police officers hold gender stereotypes that influence the way they respond to family violence.     

Someone to blame: When identifying a victim decreases helping

People's willingness to contribute (WTC) more resources to save the lives of identified victims than to save anonymous or statistical victims is known as the identifiable victim effect. Previous research suggested that the emotional arousal (empathy and distress) toward a single identified victim is a major source of the effect. However, identification of a single target may also strengthen negative perceptions (like blame) in situations where the target is perceived as responsible for his/her plight. In five studies (collecting real contributions and hypothetical WTC) we show that identifying a person in need may increase or decrease helping depending on the perceived responsibility of the victim for his/her own plight. Our results suggest that in cases when it is possible to blame the victim, identification of a single target enhances negative perceptions of the victim and decreases helping, especially when the perceiver holds strong beliefs in a just world for others.     

Twice Hurt: How Newspaper Coverage May Reduce Empathy and Engender Blame for Female Victims of Crime

In a content analysis of 148 newspaper articles we examined whether victims of violent crime (excluding sex crimes) are treated differently according to their gender. Articles taken from 4 newspapers showed that accounts of violent crime personalize male victims more than female victims: more personal information was included about male victims, and males were significantly more likely to be referred to by name rather than by a noun (“the victi”) or pronoun. In a second study we investigated whether such treatment could affect both empathy for the victim and victim blame. Participants read an account of a murder that manipulated victim gender, degree of personal information, and the manner in which the victim was described. Empathy for the victim was increased across victim gender by both inclusion of personal information and referring to the victim by name. Victim blame was also reduced by the inclusion of personal information. Implications of how the news media may subtly reduce empathy and engender blame for female victims are discussed.     

Schema‐driven information processing in judgements about rape

Two studies addressed the impact of rape schemata on judgements about rape cases. In Study 1, 286 undergraduate students rated perpetrator and victim blame for five rape scenarios and completed the Perceived Causes of Rape Scale. Most blame was assigned to victims of an ex‐partner rape, followed by acquaintance and stranger rape. Least blame was assigned to perpetrators of ex‐partner rapes, followed by acquaintance and stranger rapes. Female precipitation beliefs increased victim blame and reduced perpetrator blame. In Study 2, 158 students rated rape scenarios that varied in victim perpetrator relationship and coercive strategy and completed a measure of Female Precipitation Beliefs. Half expected to be held accountable for their judgements. The perpetrator was held less liable and the victim blamed more when the perpetrator exploited the victim's incapacitated state versus using physical force. Accountability instruction reduced the impact of female precipitation beliefs on perceived perpetrator liability and victim blame. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

BLAMEWORTHINESS WITHOUT WRONGDOING

In this article I argue that it is possible to be blameworthy for doing something that was not objectively morally wrong. If I am right, this would have implications for several debates at the intersection of metaphysics and moral philosophy. I also float a view about which actions can serve as legitimate bases for blame that allows for the possibility of blameworthiness without objective wrongdoing and also suggests an explanation for the appeal of the commonly held view that blameworthiness requires objective wrongdoing.