Attribution of responsibility for rape: The influence of observer empathy,victim resistance,and victim attractiveness

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of a rape victim's physical attractiveness and resistance to rape on subjects' attributions of responsibility for the crime, certainty of the defendant's guilt, and social perceptions of the rape victim and defendant. Subjects' pretrial empathy toward rape victims and rapists was assessed by scores on the Rape Empathy Scale (RES). In addition to significant sex differences in attributions of responsibility for the incident, subjects' pretrial empathy toward rape victims and rapists was predictive of their perceptions of the rape victim, the defendant, and the rape incident. Victim resistance and attractiveness effects were significant in that subjects responded least favorably to the unattractive rape victim, particularly when she resisted the rape by fighting with her attacker. Male subjects and subjects who exhibited low empathy toward the rape victim were more responsive to subtle manipulations of victim resistance and attractiveness than were females and high RES subjects. Several explanations for these results focus on the cognitive and affective responses of subjects. The implications of the study are discussed in relation to societal attitudes toward rape and the role of sexrole stereotyping, which fosters these attitudes.The present research was supported by National Institutes of Health Biomedical Research Support Grant #5-SO7-RRO7127-09 and National Science Foundation Grant #SES-8012316 to Sheila R. Deitz. The authors express their appreciation to Nancy Williams, Joanne Moran, Bill Willging, David Small, David Waldman, and Robert Kingsley for their assistance in data collection and analysis.Correspondence should be sent to Sheila R. Deitz, now at Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy, University of Virginia, Box 100, Blue Ridge Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia 22901. Copies of the Rape Empathy Scale and an extended report on the reliability and validity of scale are available from this author.     

Self-rated likelihood of raping and the social perception of rape

Three hundred ninety-two junior college students responded to a questionnaire concerning a depiction of a rape incident in which a photograph of the supposed victim was included. A manipulation of the attractiveness of the victim produced several findings indicating that views of rape as a sexually motivated crime mediate attributions of blame to the rape victim. Gender differences in attitudes toward rape were also prevalent throughout the factor structure of beliefs which was found. Male subjects also rated their own likelihood of raping, “if they could be certain they would not be caught”. The results of a discriminant analysis indicated that high scorers on this self-rating showed a pattern of disinhibitory beliefs about the normality and acceptability of rape, and the seductiveness of rape victims. High self-rated likelihood of raping among males also correlated negatively with scores on the femininity scale of the BSRI.     

Causal and Moral Responsibility of Victims of Rape and Robbery

Four experimental studies of attribution in a criminal situation used a 2⁴ ANOVA design with three common independent variables, namely, type of crime, time of crime, and victim's prior experience of crime, all three manipulated through a passage describing an incident of crime involving a male criminal and a female victim, and one common dependent measure which was length of imprisonment recommended for the criminal. The fourth independent variable was subject's sex in the first two experiments and instructionally manipulated female subject's involvement (objective or identifying female subject) in the last two experiments. The second dependent measure was fault attributed to the victim in the first and third experiments and perceived likelihood of crime in the second and fourth experiments. The subjects were undergraduate students of the University of Bombay, 15 per cell in each experiment. Female subjects were more punitive toward the criminal than male subjects, especially in the case of rape, and the rapist received a longer sentence than the robber, especially from female subjects. Identifying female subjects tended to recommend a longer sentence than objective female subjects. Female subjects attributed less fault to the victim and perceived greater likelihood of crime than male subjects and identifying female subjects attributed somewhat less fault to the victim than did objective female subjects. The robbery victim was attributed more fault than the rape victim. Whereas previous experience of similar victimization increased attributed victim's fault, a late hour enhanced both attributed victim's fault and perceived likelihood of crime. These findings are discussed with respect to a theoretical distinction between causal and moral responsibility as represented by the likellhood and fault measures, respectively.     

Acquaintance versus stranger rape: Testing the ambiguity reduction hypothesis

After reading a vignette about a hypothetical rape incident, 240 undergraduate students of the University of Bombay recommended imprisonment for the rapist and attributed fault to the rape victim. The experiment had a 2 (subject's sex) 2 (schoolteacher versus callgirl victim) × 2 (acquainted versus stranger rapist) × 2 (victim's physical resistance versus no physical resistance) factorial design with 15 subjects per cell. As predicted, attributed victim's fault was greater and recommended rapist's imprisonment was shorter with male rather than female subjects, with the callgirl rather than schoolteacher victim, and with no physical resistance rather than with physical resistance. Greater fault was also attributed to the acquainted rather than unacquainted victim. These main effects and the interaction effects were discussed primarily in light of the proposition that acquaintance rape is viewed less seriously than stranger rape because of ambiguity regarding the acquainted victim's consent.     

Cognitive mediators of reactions to rape

Subjects were exposed to slides that primed different concepts associated with aggression, close personal interactions between men and women, and women as sex objects. Then, as part of an ostensibly unrelated study, they read the testimonies of several rape victims and made judgments concerning both the victim and the alleged rapist. Exposure to negative consequences of aggression apparently threatened subjects' beliefs in a just world, leading subjects to interpret rape incidents in ways that reaffirm this belief (i.e., it strengthened subjects' beliefs that the defendant should be punished, but it also caused them to attribute more responsibility for the incident to the victim). Portrayals of close personal relationships between men and women increased male subjects' beliefs that rape victims were responsible for the incident, but had the opposite effect on female subjects' beliefs. Portrayals of women as sex objects decreased male subjects' beliefs in the victim's credibility and increased their beliefs that she was responsible for the incident; however, it had the opposite effects on female subjects' judgments. Despite their effects on judgments of the rape victim, priming manipulations did not affect beliefs that the defendant should be convicted. Implications of these results for the effects of the public media on attitudes and beliefs about rape are discussed.     

Effects of Victim's Pain Cues,Victim's Race,and Level of Prior Instigation upon Physical Aggression1

Sixty-four white undergraduate males participated in an experiment designed to examine the effects of victin's pain cues, victim's racial identity, and level of prior instigation upon physical aggression. On the basis of previous research, it was tentatively predicted that pain cues from a different-race victim would exert less influence upon subjects' later behavior than similar feedback from a same-race victim. Results offered support for this prediction. Specifically, pain cues from a black victim were less effective in inhibiting subsequent aggression by nonangry white subjects, and less effective in facilitating subsequent aggression by angry white subjects, than identical feedback from a white victim. An interpretation of these findings in terms of aggressors' emotional reactions to pain cues from their victim was suggested.     

Sexual preference, gender, and blame attributions in adolescent sexual assault

The study investigated the impact of victim sexual orientation, perpetrator gender, and participant gender on judgements toward a 15-year-old male victim of a depicted sexual assault. One hundred and eight-eight participants (97 male, 91 female) read a hypothetical scenario depicting the sexual assault of a 15-year-old male victim where the victim's sexual orientation and the perpetrator's gender were varied between subjects. Participants then completed a questionnaire assessing their attributions toward both the victim and the perpetrator. Results revealed that male participants blamed the victim more than female participants when the victim was both gay and attacked by a male perpetrator. All participants, regardless of gender, made more positive judgements toward the female as opposed to male perpetrator. Results are discussed in relation to gender role stereotypes and homophobia.     

Sexual Preference,Gender, and Blame Attributions in Adolescent Sexual Assault

ABSTRACT

The study investigated the impact of victim sexual orientation, perpetrator gender, and participant gender on judgements toward a 15-year-old male victim of a depicted sexual assault. One hundred and eight-eight participants (97 male, 91 female) read a hypothetical scenario depicting the sexual assault of a 15-year-old male victim where the victim's sexual orientation and the perpetrator's gender were varied between subjects. Participants then completed a questionnaire assessing their attributions toward both the victim and the perpetrator. Results revealed that male participants blamed the victim more than female participants when the victim was both gay and attacked by a male perpetrator. All participants, regardless of gender, made more positive judgements toward the female as opposed to male perpetrator. Results are discussed in relation to gender role stereotypes and homophobia.     

Attitudes Toward Sexual Harassment of Women in India1

A hypothetical incident of sexual harassment at the workplace was presented to 720 undergraduate students of the University of Bombay who attributed blame to the female victim of a superordinate male harasser and rated the appropriateness of her response to the harassment. The experiment had a 2 (Subject's Sex) × 3 (Victim's Marital Status: unmarried, married, or divorced) × 2 (Type of Harassment: verbal vs. physical) × 4 (Victim's Response: ignoring, complaining, scolding, or slapping) between-subjects factorial design with 15 subjects per cell. Male subjects blamed the victim of harassment more than female subjects, the unmarried and married victims were blamed more than the divorced victim, and the ignoring victim was blamed more than the complaining, scolding, and slapping victims. Perceived appropriateness of victim's response was higher with the divorced victim as compared to the unmarried and married victims, with physical harassment as compared to verbal harassment, and with the complaining, scolding, and slapping victims as compared to the ignoring victim. A three-way interaction on perceived appropriateness suggested that female subjects, as compared to male subjects, were more in favor of strong self-assertive action against harassment, but relatively less so in the case of the unmarried victim.     

Perceptions of rape victims and assailants: Effects of physical attractiveness,acquaintance, and subject gender

Subjects read different versions of a rape case in which the victim was walking alone at night and the defendant was obviously guilty. Female subjects saw the crime as more debilitating for the victim and were more punitive than male subjects. Female subjects considered the victim less responsible when the defendant was unattractive than when the defendant was attractive. Presence or absence of prior casual acquaintance between the victim and assailant interacted with other factors. With prior acquaintance, male subjects considered the victim more responsible than female subjects, unattractive victims were considered more responsible than attractive victims, and unattractive defendants were considered more likely to engage in future antisocial behavior than attractive defendants. Although biased by other factors, level of victim blame was low overall. Yet subjects seemed reluctant to believe the rapist and his victim were unacquainted and seemed to consider the rape as sexually, rather than aggressively, motivated.The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Andrea R. Halpern and T. Joel Wade. Portions of this paper were presented at the meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association, Buffalo, New York, April 1988.     

Perceiving Violence: The Influence of Motivational Status and Environmental Setting

Previous studies examining perceptions of violence within a public house context have shown that the presence of door control (bouncers), interior tidiness, and the actions of the victim play an important role in shaping judgments of the aggressor and the victim (Lawrence & Leather, 1999; Leather & Lawrence, 1995). However, the extent to which individuals belonging to the same group as the victim make similar patterns of judgments to those recruited from a different group has not been investigated. This paper reports the findings of a study in which the perceptions of 80 licensees (same group as victim) and 80 undergraduate students (different group from victim) are compared after exposure to an account of a violent incident. Also manipulated were environmental variables (presence of door control and interior tidiness) and the actions of the victim. Results support the JWH, whereby the victim is blamed more by those from the same group than by those from a different group. Results are discussed in light of defensive attributions and the JWH and highlight the importance of taking environmental information into account in studies of social cognition.     

Dynamics of hostile aggression: Influence of anger,hurt instructions,and victim pain feedback

The research basically examined some of the dynamics of hostile aggression by looking at the effects of different Buss procedure instructions and levels of victim pain feedback on the aggressive behavior of angered and nonangered men. In a 2 × 2 × 2 completely crossed factorial experiment, male undergraduates were initially either angered or not by an experimental accomplice. When later given the ostensible opportunity to administer shocks to the same accomplice in a typical Buss procedure, the subjects were either told that longer and more intense shocks would probably interfere with the person's learning as well as causing him more pain (hurt instructions) or given no information about the effects of shocks on learning (standard instructions). Finally, after each shock they administered, the subjects were provided with either high or low victim pain feedback. The angered men were significantly more aggressive than their nonangered counterparts, and a significant interaction between anger and instructions indicated this was especially true for the men given hurt instructions. Significant interactions between the other independent variables and trial blocks revealed that the angered men, particularly those receiving hurt instructions and high victim pain feedback, displayed the greates increases in aggression. The results provide qualified support for the derived proposition about hostile aggression that signs and/or knowledge of victim injury and pain can stimulate more intense aggression from angry individuals.     

Attributions About Rape: Effects of Rapist Force, Observer Sex and Sex Role Attitudes

The present study investigated subjects' perceptions of a hypothetical rape situation as a function of the amount of force used in the rape, sex of subject, and subjects' attitudes toward feminism. Two hundred thirty-two subjects (118 females, 114 males) were randomly assigned by sex to one of three force conditions. Consistent with expectation, subjects expressed greater certainty that a rape had actually occurred with increased force on the part of the assailant ( p <.001). A second hypothesis received partial support: Increasing force led to stronger attributions of rape on the part of traditional women, whereas liberal women tended to see the incident as rape at all force levels. A similar relationship did not emerge for men, however. As predicted, profeminist subjects implicated societal factors as causal in rape to a greater extent than did nonfeminists. Contrary to prediction, however, pro- and nonfeminists were not found to differ from each other in the degree of blame attributed to either the victim or the assailant. The findings support the general notion that one's gender and sex-role attitudes as well as the degree of force used by a rape assailant affect one's evaluation of this situation and the manner in which one attributes cause. Implications for rape prevention and victim reaction are discussed.     

Race,Rape, and Bias: Distortion of Prior Odds and Meaning Changes

Two experiments were conducted to investigate how racial bias affects juror decision making. Three sources of bias were studied: (1) prior probabilities of guilt, (2) distortion of the meaning of evidence, and (3) differential weighting of information. A paired comparison technique employed in the first study revealed that pretrial probabilities of guilt were greater when the victim was White than when she was Black. In the second experiment, a different group of subjects viewed one of four videotaped simulated rape trials in which seven segments of testimony had been previously rated as pro-prosecution, pro-defense, or neutral. During the trial, subjects rated each segment on three different scales: prosecution, defense, and degree of defendant guilt. Results indicated that neutral evidence was seen as more favorable to prosecution for a White victim compared to a Black victim. Evidence which favored either prosecution or defense was not distorted. Regression analyses revealed a positive relationship between estimates of guilt and distortion of evidence. The weight or importance of the evidence did not vary as a function of victim or defendant race. Years of recommended imprisonment indicated greater severity toward the Black assailant of a White woman. The results suggest that bias in favor of White victims occurs both in the assessment of pretrial probabilities and perception of evidence.     

Victim and perpetrator accounts of interpersonal conflict: autobiographical narratives about anger

Subjects furnished autobiographical accounts of being angered (victim narratives) and of angering someone else (perpetrator narratives). The provoking behavior was generally portrayed by the perpetrator as meaningful and comprehensible, whereas the victim tended to depict it as arbitrary, gratuitous, or incomprehensible. Victim accounts portrayed the incident in a long-term context that carried lasting implications, especially of continuing harm, loss, and grievance. Perpetrator accounts tended to cast the incident as a closed, isolated incident that did not have lasting implications. Several findings fit a hypothesis that interpersonal conflicts may arise when a victim initially stifles anger and then finally responds to an accumulated series of provocations, whereas the perpetrator perceives only the single incident and regards the angry response as an unjustified overreaction. Victim and perpetrator roles are associated with different subjective interpretations.     

Penalties for Rape as a Function of Victim Provocativeness, Damage, and Resistance

Subjects responded to one of four cases of rape which they read by indicating how many years in prison the rapist should serve as a penalty. In Experiment 1, the cases presented the victim as either provocatively dressed or nonprovocatively dressed, and either pregnant as a result of the rape or not pregnant. Older subjects gave significantly higher penalties when the victim was pregnant, while younger subjects did not. In Experiment 2, the cases presented the victims as being either raped or robbed and as resisting or not resisting her attacker. Male subjects gave significantly lower penalties when the victim did not resist, while female subjecis gave higher penalties when the victim did not resist-this interaction being significant for both crimes.     

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.     

That Could Be Me (or Not): Senseless Violence and the Role of Deservingness,Victim Ethnicity,Person Identification,and Position Identification1

Building on just‐world theory, the current study examined variables contributing to the labeling of violent incidents as senseless. In a 2 × 2 (Blame Opportunities x Victim Ethnicity) design, Dutch participants (N= 78) were provided with a written hypothetical situation depicting a violent incident. Consistent with predictions, the violence was evaluated to be less deserved and more senseless (and the desired penalty for the offender was stronger) when participants had no opportunity to blame the victim than when they did have an opportunity to blame the victim. Likewise, an act of violence committed against a victim belonging to an ethnic minority (allochthonous victim) was perceived to be more deserved and less senseless (and the desired penalty for the offender was smaller) than a similar violent act directed against a native (autochthonous) victim. Findings designate that the just‐world theory offers a promising approach to investigate factors determining the labeling of violent incidents as senseless by outside, uninvolved observers.