The moderating role of ambivalent sexism: the influence of power status on perception of rape victim and rapist

The authors examined the effect of ambivalent sexism on others' perceptions of alleged-rape incidents, in which there are socioeconomic status differences between the victims and their perpetrators. The dependent variables included measures of minimizing rape, blaming the victim, excusing the perpetrator, and determining the length of the recommended sentence. The results indicated 4 noteworthy findings: First, individuals who scored high on the hostile power relation (HPR) measure tended to minimize the seriousness of rape incidents. Second, the HPR measure moderated victim blame only in the powerful-man scenario. Third, participants who scored high on the HPR measure tended to believe that the alleged rapist held less responsibility. Fourth, female participants tended to give longer sentences.