Placing the Blame for crime in press reports

This study examined the attributions of responsibility contained in factual accounts of crime in a number of Canadian daily newspapers. The focus was upon the relative amount of coverage accorded crime suspects and victims, as well as upon the presence or absence of references to the victim's contribution to the offense. Also, examined were the effects of the type of crime involved and the gender of the parties to an offense upon offender/victim coverage and references to victim contribution.

As expected, offenders tended to receive greater coverage than victims. The coverage of the offender, relative to the victim, tended to be greatest when the offender was a male and a property, rather than violent crime was involved. The victim's gender did not exercise an effect on offender/victim coverage. In about one‐quarter of the articles, a mention was made of the victim's contribution to the offense. Such references to the victim's role were more likely to be found where the offender was a female, the victim a male and where the offense was violent in nature. These findings about the media portrayals of the respective roles in crime of offenders and victims, as well as the effects of the type of crime and gender on these roles, conformed, in large part, to what is known about the actual dynamics of criminal behavior.     

Something in the way he moves? Interpersonal judgments of acquaintance rapists

Two studies explored variations in women's appraisals of acquaintance rapists. In Study 1, an acquaintance rapist was evaluated the least harshly when he was physically dominating but sexually dysfunctional. In Study 2, this softening of the rapist's perceived qualities was most evident when he attributed his sexual failure to a need for his victim's sexual consent. Acquaintance rape is therefore an interpersonal crime that can yield varied judgments of its perpetrators. In particular, some women may give more benefit of doubt to sexually violent men by relying on an “adversary transformation” narrative in which the victim has tamed the rapist and harnessed his strength, passion, and other desirable qualities for herself.     

“Tell me I'm sexy . . . and otherwise valuable”: Body valuation and relationship satisfaction

Although extant research demonstrates that body valuation by strangers has negative implications for women, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that body valuation by a committed male partner is positively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner also values them for their nonphysical qualities, but negatively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner is not committed or does not value them for their nonphysical qualities. Study 3 demonstrates that body valuation by a committed female partner is negatively associated with men's relationship satisfaction when that partner does not also value them for their nonphysical qualities but unassociated with men's satisfaction otherwise. These findings join others demonstrating that fully understanding the implications of interpersonal processes requires considering the interpersonal context.     

Roofies,Mickies and Cautionary Tales: Examining the Persistence of the “Date-Rape Drug” Crime Narrative

This article examines the origins and persistence of the “roofies” story, a crime narrative that emerged during the mid 1990s, warning women to guard their drinks against lurking predators seeking to incapacitate and rape them. The article explores both the construction of this crime story as a panic over club drugs and its persistence as a women's cautionary tale. We argue that the roofies narrative has endured long beyond the typical crime story because it has been reified as an institutionalized and protected rape narrative that is oft-repeated and rarely challenged.     

That woman looks pretty,but is she attractive? Female perceptions of facial beauty and the impact of cultural labels

This study examined women's looking time towards female faces while they judged them for attractiveness, prettiness, cuteness and beauty. In Study 1, ratings were similar for scales of attractiveness and prettiness, and participants looked longer at prettier over less pretty faces. Judging female faces on the basis of attractiveness did not elicit visual preferences, although in this case females’ biases to look at attractive women might have been inhibited by the physical presence of an experimenter while looking times were being recorded. In Study 2, duration of viewing time was computer-recorded without participants’ knowledge, after priming them to judge faces in terms of attractiveness, prettiness, beauty or cuteness. Viewing time increased with face appeal; the differences between low and high appeal faces turned out to be greatest when participants evaluated them in terms of attractiveness and least apparent when asked to judge them in cuteness. In conclusion, both studies revealed a correspondence between aesthetic and looking preferences, yet some variation in women's visual attention depending on how female beauty is labeled.     

Sensitization of escape in female Betta splendens

Following 1 day of cohabitation with a male, female Siamese fighting fish showed heightened escape from male conspecifics (enclosed behind glass). Escape from males was general in that no particular male stimulus was required to provoke female escape. However, female conspecifics remained relatively attractive following exposure to a male. Tactile stimulation of females by males (biting, perhaps) plays some role and may be required in sensitizing females' escape from males. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Distancing or drawing together: Sexism and organisational tolerance of sexism impact women's social relationships at work

This article examines the role of organisational climate in women's social responses to sexism at work. We argue that after experiences of sexism, women “draw together” with other women when they perceive that the organisational climate is intolerant of sexism. We assess the role of organisational climate at three levels: peer-, manager-, and policy-level. We conducted a correlational study (N_study1 = 405) and two experimental studies (N_study2 = 377, N_study3 = 391), in which we examined women's experiences of sexism at work (measured in Study 1; manipulated in Studies 2 and 3). We also measured perceived tolerance of sexism at the peer-, manager- and policy-level in all studies. The main DVs were women's workplace friendships with other women in Studies 1 and 2, and closeness to female co-workers in Study 3. Results showed that perceived tolerance of sexism from peers was especially important in shaping women's social relationships following experiences of sexism; tolerance from managers or at the policy level had less consistent effects. Specifically, experiences with sexism were positively associated with female participants' reported friendship (Studies 1 and 2) and closeness (Study 3) with their female colleagues, but only when peers were perceived not to tolerate sexism. When peers were perceived to tolerate sexism, female participants did not respond to sexism by drawing together.     

The impact of ethnicity,nationality, counseling orientation,and mental health standards on stereotypic beliefs about women: A pilot study

People vary in the extent to which they hold stereotypic beliefs about women. The recently developed Beliefs About Women Scale (BAWS) was used in five investigations to examine the following aspects of people's stereotypic beliefs about women: (Study I) the impact of ethnicity (Hispanics and Anglos) on women's endorsement of traditional beliefs about women; (Study II) the impact of national culture (Mexico and the United States) on women's responses to the BAWS; (Study III) the extent to which U.S. women define women's and men's mental health in terms of stereotypic beliefs about women; (Study IV) the extent to which preferences for counseling orientation influence the beliefs about women attributed to mentally healthy women and men; and (Study V) the impact of national culture (Mexico and the United States) on the beliefs about women ascribed to mentally healthy women and men. The results indicated that (a) U.S. Anglo females disagreed more strongly with traditional beliefs about women than did U.S. Hispanic females; (b) U.S. women expressed greater agreement with traditional stereotypes about women's interpersonal abilities and greater disagreement with traditional stereotypes about women's personal competencies than did women from Mexico; (c) the beliefs about women held by U.S. psychology trainees, and the beliefs about women that they attributed to mentally healthy females, were more nontraditional than those that they attributed to mentally healthy males; (d) particular counseling preferences were associated with the stereotypic beliefs about women that female counseling trainees imputed to mentally healthy males and females; and (e) similarities and differences exist on the beliefs about women that female psychology trainees from the United States and Mexico ascribe to mentally healthy females and males. The discussion focuses on mentally healthy beliefs about women, and the implications of these findings for the delivery of mental health services to women and men from various cultures.     

Do women who succeed in male‐dominated domains help other women? The moderating role of gender identification

It is often expected that the first women to advance in male‐dominated fields will promote other women who follow them. Two studies test the hypothesis that some women show this expected pattern of promoting women but that others show the opposite pattern, favoring men over women. In two studies, women's gender identification moderated the extent to which they favored men over women when they advanced in a male‐dominated field. Specifically, the weaker women's gender identification, the more favoritism they showed for a male relative to a female subordinate. Gender identification did not moderate women's behavior in a context in which women were not underrepresented, pointing to the power of the situation in eliciting this relationship. Implications for the advancement of women in male‐dominated fields are discussed.     

The role of stranger harassment experiences in college women's perceived possibility of gender crimes happening to them

The present study examined the relation between stranger harassment experiences and college women's perceived possibility of gender and nongender crimes happening to them. Undergraduate women attending a British university completed self‐report measures of stranger harassment and self‐objectification (i.e., self‐surveillance and body shame), and then evaluated four vignettes of various crimes on the severity of the crime and the likelihood of the crime happening to them. Results indicated that stranger harassment is a common experience for these British university women. Serial mediation analyses revealed a direct effect of stranger harassment on perceived likelihood of rape and perceived likelihood of intimate partner violence, and an indirect effect of stranger harassment on rape through self‐surveillance, whereas stranger harassment and indices of self‐objectification were unrelated to perceived likelihood of human trafficking and burglary. Discussion is centered on the role of objectifying experiences in perceptions of gender crimes where sexual and physical harm to women's bodies is emphasized, and the potential impact for those women on the receiving end of unwanted sexual objectification.     

Women seek more variety in rewards when closer to ovulation

We propose that women's increased generalized sensitivity to rewards during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle causes them to seek more variety in rewards when they are in the fertile phase than when they are not in the fertile phase of the cycle. In Studies 1–3, across the reward domains of mating and hedonic food, we show that women seek more variety in rewards when closer to ovulation. Moreover, we provide support for the proposition that women's increased reward sensitivity during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle causes their greater variety seeking. Specifically, in Study 3, we show that fertile women's greater variety seeking does not extend to non-rewards, such as non-hedonic food. Our findings suggest that behavioral effects of women's hormonal shifts during the menstrual cycle are not limited to the mating domain and may extend to a wide category of reward domains.     

Hungry people prefer larger bodies and objects: The importance of testing boundary effects

Several lab-based studies have indicated that when people are hungry, they judge larger women's bodies as more attractive, compared to when they are satiated. These satiety-dependent judgements are assumed to provide explanatory power when it comes to the noted cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards women's adiposity, whereby people who live in regions that are under greater nutritional stress tend to have more favourable attitudes towards bigger bodies. However, it is premature to assume that women's bodies are the proper or actual domain of the satiety-dependent judgement shifts found within research study testing contexts until stimuli other than female bodies have also been tested: The research programme falls into the trap of confirmation bias unless we also seek out disconfirmatory evidence and test the boundaries of the effects of hunger. Accordingly, we collected attractiveness judgements of female and male bodies manipulated to vary in size by varying level of adiposity, and objects manipulated to vary in size, from 186 participants who also reported their current hunger level. We found that larger sizes of stimuli in general, and women's bodies in particular, especially when judged by women, were judged as more attractive by the hungrier participants. We discuss these patterns in the context of the Insurance Hypothesis, the Environmental Security Hypothesis, and the impact of hunger on acquisition.     

Ambient Temperature and Violent Crime1

Baron and Ransberger (1978) argue that civil violence increases as temperature rises into the mid 80s, and then decreases as temperatures rise further. Two experiments test this hypothesis using data on temperature and the incidence of crime for summer months in two midwestern cities. The crime data were divided into violent and nonviolent crimes, and then correlated with the maximum, minimum, and average temperatures, and several humidity measures. Violent crime correlated significantly with temperature; nonviolent crime did not. This relationship was linear in the first study, but curvilinear in the second. Inspection of the data suggests that the incidence of aggressive behavior (i.e., violent crime) does not drop off in the mid-80s as laboratory findings and Baron and Ransberger's results would suggest, but continues to increase as temperatures rise into the 90s. The mean incidence of violent crime was higher for days in the 90s than for days in the 80s. A hypothesis for resolving this contradiction between real world and laboratory findings is discussed.     

The effects of nonverbal cues on gender differences in perceptions of sexual intent

The effects of several nonverbal cues on perceptions of male and female stimulus persons' sexuality were examined. Based on the findings of Abbey (“Sex Differences in Attributions for Friendly Behavior: Do Males Misperceive Females' Friendliness?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1982, 42, 830–838) and other investigators, we hypothesized that in general males would attribute more sexuality to both male and female targets than would females. Furthermore, we hypothesized that males' and females' perceptions of sexual intent would be most divergent in situations in which the nonverbal cues were most ambiguous (e.g., causal touch, moderate interpersonal distance). To test this hypothesis, the effects of three nonverbalcues were examined: interpersonal distance, eye contact, and touch. Males rated female targets as more seductive, sexy, and promiscuous, and expressed more sexual attraction to the opposite-sexed target, than females did for both ambiguous and nonambiguous nonverbal cues. Males' ratings of the male targets' sexuality were higher than females' ratings in two of the three studies. Also, across the three studies both female and male subjects rated the female target higher than the male target on the sexual traits. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Situationally Equivocal Eyewitness Evidence and the Violence of Crimes

Eyewitness evidence is amongst the most important types of evidence in investigative and juridical proceedings. Yet, eyewitness evidence frequently derives from observations made under situationally equivocal conditions, including such factors as darkness and physical obstruction of view. The effect of the violence of a given crime on potential jurors' evaluation of such equivocal evidence was addressed. A witness's identification of a suspect in a violent crime was generated in three versions, varying only in the level of violence of the crime. Respondents were more likely to accept this identification as accurate under more violent conditions and were also less likely to report noticing or considering equivocal aspects (darkness and physical obstruction) in situations of greater violence. Predisposing factors to judgement of guilt lay significantly in the acceptance of punishment as a viable deterrent to crime and of societal guilt for the criminal's behaviour, although political or religious orientations were not shown to influence these results, and none of these factors interacted with the violence of the crime to influence judgement of guilt or innocence. These findings indicate the importance of affective factors in judgements of guilt or innocence, especially when these judgements are based on situationally equivocal eyewitness evidence. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gendered pathways to romantic attachment in emerging adults: The role of body image and parental support

This study analyses the impact of body image and perceived parental behaviour (support and negativity) as factors that contribute to romantic attachment in emerging adulthood. In a 11-year longitudinal study on 144 females and 114 males, we assessed body image, body mass index, and perceived father's and mother's support and negativity during adolescence (at ages 14 and 17) and in emerging adulthood (age 21). At the age of 25, romantic attachment was assessed. Results of path analyses revealed that females' positive body image was consistently linked with greater parental support over time and contributed to low avoidance in romance at the age of 25, whereas perceived negativity with fathers mediated by body image contributed to more avoidance in females' later romantic relationships. In contrast, parental support and negativity during adolescence and young adulthood had no impact; only a positive body image resulted in males' low avoidance in later romantic attachment at the age of 25. The findings point to gendered socialization for males and females and highlight the importance of body image for an adaptive romantic outcome in emerging adulthood.     

Focusing on gender similarities increases female students’ motivation to participate in STEM

Recent analyses highlight women's opting out of STEM fields as an important contributing factor to the gender gap in science. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors influencing women's motivation to participate in STEM. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that the focus on differences between male and female students in STEM, even when those differences are irrelevant to the competence dimension, would decrease the motivation of women to engage in STEM. On the other hand, a belief in gender similarities would increase their motivation to get involved in STEM. We conducted three experiments among female students in STEM majors, in which we manipulated the focus on gender differences versus similarities. The results, which replicated across three studies, showed that when female students focused on similarities between men and women, they were more motivated to engage in STEM‐related activities than when they focused on gender differences. Additionally, we tested whether the gender stereotypes and a perception of gender discrimination mediated that effect but the results of these analyses were inconsistent across studies. Overall, the findings suggest that messaging directed at women in STEM, which highlights similarities between men and women could encourage them to engage in STEM but deactivation of gender stereotypes does not necessarily account for these effects.     

Interaction of sex-related psychological characteristics and psychoneuroendocrine stress responses

Sex-related psychological characteristics of male and female engineering students were examined and correlated with measures of sympathetic-adrenal medullary hormones. Self-ratings showed that both males and females perceived themselves as equally high in characteristics generally viewed as masculine and feminine. Retrospective reports of play activities in childhood reflected the traditional sex-role patterns, whereas ratings of adult interests, hobbies, and job preferences showed that the two gender groups had moved in a more androgynous direction, with the increase in females' cross-sex interests being greater than that of males. The intellectual performance profiles showed the well-documented sex difference, with males excelling in visuospatial abilities and females in verabl abilities and perceptual speed. Correlations between measures of intellectual performance and catecholamine excretion were mainly positive in the male group and negative in the female group, which is consistent with findings from previous studies.     

Attributions of Blame in Sexual Assault to Perpetrators and Victims of Both Genders1

Previous research found that men attribute more blame to rape victims than do women; men also attribute less blame to perpetrators. In rape situations with a male perpetrator and a female victim, the roles of perpetrator and victim are confounded with gender category. To determine whether men are more lenient toward perpetrators or toward other males, the present study examined attributions of blame in scenarios that varied the gender category of both perpetrator and victim. Results showed that men's and women's attributions of blame to perpetrators were based on the role that was enacted, rather than gender per se: Men attributed less blame to perpetrators than did women, regardless of the perpetrator's gender category, indicating that men were more lenient toward perpetrators than were women. In addition, when the victim was female, the perpetrator was blamed more and the victim was blamed less than when the victim was male.     

The relative severity of acts of physical violence in heterosexual relationships: An item response theory analysis

This study evaluated the structure of an expanded version of the physical violence scale of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS). A community sample of 1,092 randomly selected men and women reported on perpetration and receipt of 14 violent acts in their relationships. Item response theory analyses indicated that the violence items were unidimensional for recipient and perpetrator reports of men's and women's violence. There was convergence between severity of acts as reported by perpetrators and recipients for both men's and women's violence. Results indicated that adding together the number of different acts endorsed to form a total score is appropriate for both men's and women's violence. Total scores were strongly related to likelihood of injury, supporting the validity of CTS‐type measures to assess severity of violence.