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The Effect of Victim Attractiveness and Type of Abuse Suffered on Attributions of Victim Blame and Credibility in Intimate Partner Violence: A Vignette-Based Online Experiment
Violence Against Women
Abstract
Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are frequently blamed and disbelieved, which may affect their willingness to report their abuse experiences. This vignette-based online experiment examines whether victim attractiveness (attractive vs unattractive) and the type of abuse suffered (psychological vs psychological plus physical abuse) may impact attributions of victim blame or victim credibility. The final sample included 167 UK residents (79% females) aged between 18 and 66 years (M = 33.17, SD = 11.26). Results indicated that the attractive victim was judged as being more credible than the unattractive victim. Results are discussed in light of societal attitudes towards IPV.
... As a result, victims may have difficulty communicating the severity of their situation to others, and those they seek support from may not comprehend the threat (Sikström and Dahl, 2023). Indeed, women who had not been in an abusive relationship were more likely to minimize psychological abuse that they witnessed (Hammock et al., 2015;Hall et al., 2023). Thus, perpetrators of psychological violence were deemed less responsible for their actions than those who had engaged in physical abuse (Wilson and Smirles, 2020). ...
... Moreover, the people they turn to for support may be equally uncertain and unwilling to label behaviors as abusive without a better understanding of the situation (Sikström and Dahl, 2023). Victims may have difficulty communicating the severity of their situation to others, and women who had not been in an abusive relationship were more likely to minimize psychological abuse described by others (Hammock et al., 2015;Hall et al., 2023). The hesitancy in appraising conflicts as abusive has implications for how individuals respond, and the well-being of the person being targeted. ...
Introduction
Stemming from a stress appraisal and coping perspective, the present investigation developed a methodology for assessing how individuals appraise abusive dating relationship conflicts (Study 1) and the implications of such appraisals for informing coping responses to abusive interactions (Study 2).
Methods
Participants ranging in age from 17 to 29 years (Study 1: 102 males, 339 females; Study 2: 88 males, 362 females) completed a survey in which they were presented with a series of 10 scenarios that conveyed relationship conflict cues that were ostensibly aligned with various forms of psychological abuse.
Results
Factor analyses indicated that blatant actions conducted in privacy were differentiated from more ambiguous public forms of psychological abuse, in that the latter were appraised by both males and females as more abusive. Females were further likely to appraise blatant conflicts as more threatening but at the same time more resolvable. Participants who had encountered abuse in their own intimate relationships were especially likely to appraise conflicts as abusive, threatening and uncontrollable. Such appraisals were associated with greater endorsement of avoidant coping strategies in response to an abusive encounter, irrespective of personal relationship experiences.
Discussion
It is suggested that how individuals appraise relationship conflicts may be key to their ability to cope effectively with such encounters or to provide appropriate support to those experiencing psychologically abusive relationships.
... However, some barriers discourage victims from searching for adequate mental health services, such as: (i) financial concerns related to the costs of mental health services; (ii) assessors' uncertainty about which methodology to employ; and (iii) the stigma associated with having to resort to these services (Simmons et al., 2015). In addition, many victims are blamed and disbelieved, making it more difficult to discern between real and false allegations (Hall et al., 2023;Silva, 2022) -even while acknowledging the debate around whether false allegations are a common or uncommon phenomenon (e.g., Mazeh & Widrig, 2016)-therefore curbing research by limiting the access to victimized samples and the possibility of delineating adequate assessment and intervention methods. ...
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious cause of concern for forensic professionals, lawmakers, and society. However, only a few studies have investigated the features of IPV victimization that may aid in judicial cases and in providing appropriate treatment for victims. The main objective of the present study was to determine how the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) can differentiate between victimized and non-victimized women and assess its predictive value concerning victims’ profiles. Participants were divided into victims (initial sample: N = 132; and victims with valid PAI profiles: N = 107) and control (N = 107) groups based on the attribution of Victim/Particularly Vulnerable Victim status according to Portuguese legislation. We investigated how the PAI scales and subscales could discriminate between the two groups using ROC curve analysis, cut-off scores, and logistic regression models. ROC curve analysis and cut-off scores of Suicidal Ideation (SUI), Stress (STR), Traumatic Stress (ARD-T), Persecution (PAR-P), Affective Instability (BOR-A), Identity Problems (BOR-I), Negative Relationships (BOR-N), and Affective Depression (DEP-A) revealed adequate discrimination, and logistic regression analysis confirmed that these scales and subscales were relevant in the identification of IPV victims. Taken together, these results revealed that some expected PAI scales and subscales may accurately discriminate victims of IPV, which may be useful in forensic intervention and decision-making processes.
... Once the abuse occurs, blaming behaviors may arise, which can be accompanied by neglect of support demands from social network members. In addition to the challenges faced within primary networks, seeking help from state mechanisms within primary networks is frequently accompanied by increased culpability regarding violent marital relationships (Hall et al., 2024). ...
Objective
To clinically validate the nursing diagnosis (ND) inadequate social support network in breastfeeding mothers.
Method
This cross‐sectional quantitative study employed clinical indicator accuracy analysis and hierarchical modeling for the etiological factors of the ND inadequate social support network. The study included 285 breastfeeding mothers registered in primary healthcare units.
Results
The most prevalent clinical indicators within the sample were deficit in instrumental support from health services, imposition of appropriate behaviors, weak social bonds, and negative social interactions. The most frequent etiological factors were deficit in strong bonds, fragility of institutional network organization, unwillingness to provide support, refusal to provide support, and deficit in healthcare professionals.
Conclusion
The ND inadequate social support network was clinically validated within the population of breastfeeding mothers, resulting in six clinical indicators with high sensitivity and specificity for identifying the diagnosis. Additionally, the statistical analysis of the etiological factors identified seven antecedents to the emergence of the diagnosis.
Implications for nursing practice
Based on these findings, nurses can better assist breastfeeding mothers with the aim of preventing an inadequate social support network. By identifying this phenomenon, it becomes possible to plan care and implement nursing interventions to address this issue effectively.
Objectives
The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of luxury brand prominence on victims on the intention to help, considering the influence of perceived victim credibility and the moderating effect of social comparison tendency.
Methods
Through two online studies, participants were exposed to scenarios where victims were either associated with luxury brands or not. Study 1 tested the direct effect of luxury brand prominence on the intention to help, while Study 2 delved into the indirect effect through perceived incredibility and examined the influence of social comparison.
Results
Results indicated that the prominence of luxury brands significantly reduced the intention to help, primarily due to enhanced perceptions of victim incredibility. Furthermore, this effect was amplified in individuals with high levels of social comparison tendency.
Conclusions
Luxury brand visibility can adversely affect the intention to help, with perceived credibility and social comparison playing the moderating role in this process. This underscores the need to consider societal and psychological factors in understanding responses to victims in distress.
Against a backdrop of legislative change that sees the taking of private sexual images underneath the clothing of a non-consenting other being made a criminal offence – upskirting – there is a need to understand the public’s judgments of and motivations to perpetrate said behavior. In this study ( N = 490), we investigated whether judgments of upskirting differed as a function of the sex of the person who was upskirted (male, female) and their perceived attractiveness (attractive, unattractive), as well as how variation in voyeuristic interest, belief in a just world, and dark personality traits predicted judgments of and proclivity to engage in upskirting. We consistently observed more lenient judgments of upskirting behavior when the person who was upskirted was attractive and male, with such judgements predicted by older age across all conditions. Moreover, proclivity to engage in upskirting was predicted by past voyeuristic behaviors, higher psychopathic personality, and being male and of older age. We discuss our findings in the context of needing to qualitatively understand the rationale underpinning these judgments, combating barriers to disclose victimization, and practitioner implications.
The perception of the credibility of a victim of sexual violence, i.e. the perception of the victim as unreliable, can put them in extremely embarrassing situations and revictimize them, affecting their mental health. Some factors related to the perception of lack of trust in victims are mentioned in the literature. However, there are few studies that look at the motivations that lead people not to trust a woman who has suffered sexual violence. The main objective of this correlational study was to analyze the role of gender and attitudes toward women as predictors of perceptions of a sexual violence victim's credibility using a fictional vignette. In particular, the aim was to investigate how these variables interact in predicting the perception of the credibility of a victim of sexual violence. A total of 199 people participated, including (97 = women) victims of violence and (102 = men) assailants. Results showed that gender and low compliance with egalitarian and pro-feminist gender roles predicted perceptions of credibility and that a significant interaction effect was observed between the two variables on perceptions of a victim of sexual violence's credibility. Finally, the results point to the need to advance the study of the psychosocialaspects that reinforce and perpetuate gender inequality in this country.Keywords: credibility perception, sexual violence, gender roles, intimate partner violence, aggressors, victims.
Technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) encompasses various harmful online behaviors, such as online gender-based hate speech, online gender-based violence, digital sexual harassment, image-based sexual abuse, and online sexual coercion. This study aimed to examine how moral disengagement varies based on the type of TFSV, and the factors influencing moral disengagement in TFSV situations. Specifically, the impact of participant gender, participant sexist beliefs, and victim–perpetrator gender was assessed. A total of 2950 respondents (70.3% women) between the ages of 16 and 79 (M = 26.33, SD = 10.09) participated in a vignette study in which the variables of interest (TFSV type, victim-perpetrator gender) were manipulated. The findings revealed that moral disengagement levels varied across different types of TFSV, with higher levels observed in cases of online gender-based hate speech, followed by online gender-based violence, digital sexual harassment, image-based sexual abuse, and online sexual coercion. Moreover, the results indicated that sexist beliefs, participant gender (i.e., being a man), and situations involving a woman perpetrator and a man victim were associated with greater moral disengagement. Additionally, it was found that sexist beliefs play a more significant role in moral disengagement for women than for men. This information, which emphasizes the role of gender socialization and sexist beliefs in the justification and normalization of this type of violence, is important for the development of prevention programs.
Research has shown that celebrity and lay victims are attributed blame for cyberabuse incidents. The nature of victim-generated content and abuse volume contribute to victim blame (VB) and perceived severity (PS) of incidents. Complementary cyberbullying research demonstrates that perceived attractiveness co-varies with VB, suggesting a protective ‘halo’ related to the ‘what is beautiful is good’ phenomenon. To explore the inter-relationships between victim status (celebrity, lay-user), victim identity claims (initial tweets: negative, neutral, positive), and behavioral residue (abuse volume: low, high), we used a mixed-factors design; victim status was a between-groups factor, whereas initial tweet valence and abuse volume were within-participants factors. We measured perceptions of victim attractiveness, VB, and PS; additionally, we measured participants' (N = 309) Dark Triad traits. In general, we found that celebrities received less blame than lay-users, and abuse against celebrities was perceived as more-severe. An exception was when celebrities initially tweeted negative content, in which case they received more blame. VB was influenced by social attractiveness, victim status, and initial tweet valence. PS was determined by abuse volume, task attractiveness, and initial tweet valence. Celebrities appear to be held in higher regard and considered more attractive than other social media users, affording them protection when abused online.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is common and has a lasting negative impact on the health and well-being of victims and survivors. People’s mental frameworks (schemas) of IPV are central in allowing them to identify and respond to IPV. Early recognition of IPV is essential to reducing the cumulative harm caused by repeated instances of abusive behaviors. In relationships with IPV, abuse typically starts with relatively less harmful behaviors, which may be ambiguous in isolation, and escalates. The present research examines the content of lay people’s IPV schemas to gain insight into their understanding of the presentation and progression of IPV. Participants (N = 168) were presented with two exemplars each of three different relationship types (nonabusive, nonphysically abusive, and physically abusive) resulting in a total of six exemplars. They were also presented with a list of behaviors that comprised nonabusive, nonphysically abusive, and physically abusive actions. For each exemplar, participants selected the behaviors they considered most likely to co-occur with the exemplar behavior. They then rated the abusiveness of the behavioral clusters they had created. Results indicate that participants distinguish nonabusive, physically abusive, and nonphysically abusive clusters. Nonphysically abusive behavior clusters are seen as less abusive than physically abusive behavior clusters, with nonphysically abusive behaviors more likely to be grouped with nonabusive behaviors.
Background
The time of widespread outbreaks of infectious diseases can lead to elevated stress and mental health problems among all persons affected, and in particular those sub-groups of the population that are at an increased risk of mental health problems. One such vulnerable group constitutes university students. The aim of this study is to assess stress, depression, anxiety, and suicidality among different groups of university students (medical, psychology, and other).
Methods
Using a repeated cross-sectional study design, we collected survey data among a large sample of 7228 university students from Poland (mean age = 22.78, s.d. = 4.40; 81% female). Data were collected in five waves, during the first 2 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe (March and April 2020).
Results
The results demonstrate a significant increase in depression levels as the pandemic was progressing. We also found that female students scored significantly higher than male students on depression, anxiety, and stress. Psychology students recorded the lowest scores on depression and anxiety. Young adult students (aged 18–24 years) had more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidality than adult students (⩾25 years).
Conclusions
These results provide insights into stress and mental health among university students during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings can be used for a more effective identification of students who may struggle during next stages of the pandemic and future crises.
This study explored how perceptions of intimate partner abuse severity and perpetrator responsibility differed based upon gender of the perpetrator/victim, participants’ gender, the type of abuse (physical vs. psychological), and the medium of abuse (in person vs. texting). Participants were undergraduates (N = 593, aged 18–27), including 457 women and 136 men from two colleges in the Northeastern United States, who completed surveys for course credit. Results demonstrated that participants perceived abuse perpetrated by a male as more severe than abuse by a female, and physical abuse as more severe than psychological abuse. Furthermore, an interaction between perpetrator gender and abuse type indicated that abuse by males was viewed as more severe regardless of whether it occurred in person or electronically. In addition, participants attributed more responsibility to males and those who committed physical abuse. These findings are discussed in light of limitations and implications for future research.
Rape myths are false beliefs about sexual violence that encourage blaming the victim and exonerating the offender. Within the framework of the Ambivalent Sexism Theory, we tested a model investigating the effect of each dimension of ambivalent sexism on the endorsement of each rape myth, and in turn the effect of each myth on the attribution of responsibility (to the perpetrator vs. to the victim) in case of sexual violence. Participants were 264 students (54.9% females). Results showed that hostile sexism toward women fostered the endorsement of each myth, whereas benevolence toward men enhanced the myth ‘He didn’t mean to’ and this increased the perception of the victim’s responsibility. Implications in developing interventions to de-construct rape myths are discussed. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization is a global public health issue and has serious consequences of women’s health. While scholars and researchers have made some progress in addressing IPV and its impact across different levels of care, there is a paucity of intervention research in this area. For example, we know little about which intervention models work best for particular groups of IPV survivors. Previous reviews have concluded there is insufficient evidence to recommend specific treatment options for victims, but they have also been limited in scope of target populations or have employed narrow eligibility criteria. This systematic review examined the efficacy and effectiveness of interventions for victims of IPV related to physical and mental health and revictimization. Three large databases were searched and articles were selected using specified criteria. Fifty-seven articles met inclusion criteria. Results indicate that both empowerment-based advocacy and cognitively focused clinical interventions demonstrate positive outcomes on the vast sequelae of violence in the context of an intimate relationship. The heterogeneity of intervention approaches and frameworks makes comparisons across studies challenging, but this review demonstrates that interventions focused on problem-solving/solution seeking, enhanced choice making and the alteration in distorted self-thinking and perception are promising in facilitating and maintaining positive physical and mental health changes for women who experience violence.
Background:
The robustness of F-test to non-normality has been studied from the 1930s through to the present day. However, this extensive body of research has yielded contradictory results, there being evidence both for and against its robustness. This study provides a systematic examination of F-test robustness to violations of normality in terms of Type I error, considering a wide variety of distributions commonly found in the health and social sciences.
Method:
We conducted a Monte Carlo simulation study involving a design with three groups and several known and unknown distributions. The manipulated variables were: Equal and unequal group sample sizes; group sample size and total sample size; coefficient of sample size variation; shape of the distribution and equal or unequal shapes of the group distributions; and pairing of group size with the degree of contamination in the distribution.
Results:
The results showed that in terms of Type I error the F-test was robust in 100% of the cases studied, independently of the manipulated conditions.
Victims of sexual violence are frequently blamed by friends, family, or legal personnel in the aftermath of an attack, with men attributing greater blame on average than women. Victims’ experiences of being blamed may generate a vicious cycle in which they are more likely to be blamed in the future. Moreover, just world beliefs (JWB) have been studied extensively as an underlying cognitive mechanism that predicts greater blame. Studies examining the influence of social support on blame have yet to examine the unique role of JWB on these attributions. The current study examined blame attribution of a fictional rape victim who received either positive, negative, or neutral support from friends and family in a sample of 383 undergraduate men and women. Individually, social support and JWB were both significant predictors of blame, and women were more influenced by social support than men; specifically, gender was a more salient predictor of blame toward the positively supported victim, suggesting that positive support received by friends and family may evoke a domino effect of support from other women. Conditional effects revealed that JWB were most influential on blame when responding to the positively supported victim. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Prior research indicates that victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are most likely to disclose their victimization experiences to an informal support (e.g., friend, family), and that IPV disclosures are often met with both positive (e.g., empathic support) and negative (e.g., victim blame) reactions. However, research on social reactions to disclosure largely has neglected the perspectives of disclosure recipients. Guided by the attribution framework, the current study extends prior research by assessing factors (i.e., situation-specific, individual, relational, attributional, and emotional response) related to positive and negative reactions from the perspective of disclosure recipients (N = 743 college students). Linear regression analyses indicated that positive social reactions were related to the victim being a woman, greater frequency of IPV victimization by the victim, greater frequency of IPV victimization by the disclosure recipient, less accepting attitudes toward IPV, a closer relationship with the victim, a less close relationship with the perpetrator, lower perceptions of victim responsibility, more empathy for the victim, and more emotional distress experienced by the disclosure recipient during the disclosure. Negative social reactions were associated with more accepting attitudes toward IPV, greater frequency of IPV victimization by the disclosure recipient, a less close relationship with the victim, higher perceptions of victim responsibility, and more emotional distress experienced by the disclosure recipient. Results suggest that programs to improve responses to victim disclosure should focus on decreasing IPV-supportive attitudes, increasing empathy, and assisting disclosure recipients in managing difficult emotional responses effectively.
This study expands upon previous research by examining how the enhancement of a dating profile picture might influence perceptions of interpersonal trustworthiness and how this relationship might further influence the perceived attractiveness and desire to date the respective individual. Participants were exposed to one of four online dating profile conditions and were then asked to rate the attractiveness of the person in the profile, as well as their perceived trustworthiness. The results revealed that men in this study perceived a more attractive female profile picture as less trustworthy, while women found a male with a more attractive profile picture to be more trustworthy. An indirect effects model also revealed that perceived trustworthiness mediates the relationship between similarity and attractiveness, though these effects were not moderated by the picture manipulation itself. Finally, this study found that individuals have greater intentions to date individuals whose profile pictures are perceived as more attractive.
We explored individuals' behavior in relation to level of trust when they encounter attractive or unattractive faces. Individuals' implicit responses were examined in Experiment 1 and their explicit responses in Experiment 2. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that the latency of the
unattractive faces with words indicating trust or attractive faces with words indicating distrust (incompatible group) was twice as long as that of the attractive faces with trust words or unattractive faces with distrust words (compatible group). In Experiment 2, we used an investment game
to measure individuals' explicit trusting behavior and found that participants gave significantly more money to attractive partners than they did to unattractive partners. These findings extend understanding of the relationship between perceptions of attractiveness and trust building.
Research examining meaning-making in the aftermath of interpersonal victimization among women has been restricted by quantitative methods and a focus on single distressing event. Qualitative methods were used to inspect meaning-making cognitions among a community sample of IPV (intimate partner violence) survivors. Consensus coding resulted in eight categories of meaning-making. The most widely endorsed cognition was self-blaming. Other strategies included justification for the abuser, normalizing violence, attribution to karmic or godly intervention, minimization and social comparison, reappraisal/opportunity for growth, absence of a protective figure, and failure to make sense of abuse. Implications with respect to adaptiveness and intervention are discussed.
© The Author(s) 2015.
This article presents a theoretical examination of victims’ (N = 28) experiences when trying to rebuild a victimization-free identity after having experienced multiple years of severe intimate partner violence (IPV). Narratives reveal experiences of victim-blaming attitudes when seeking help from informal and general formal support sources, which suggest that victims of IPV do not meet the criteria of the ‘ideal’, innocent victim worthy of ongoing formal and informal support. Drawing on criminological theories of redemption and desistance, in combination with victimological theories around social stigma and construction of the ‘ideal victim’, the study finds that victims often feel they have to redeem themselves as worthy of empathy in order to access ongoing support. These misplaced expectations of ‘desistance’ with the victim rather than the perpetrator highlight that the social stigma associated with IPV goes beyond the private nature of this type of violence and extends to victim behavior and decision making.
Detailed examination of the Landy & Aronson (1969) data on judging criminal behavior revealed a curious bias in which Ss’ impressions seemed to be considerably more negative toward an unattractive victim than toward an attractive victim, but only slightly more negative toward an unattractive defendant than toward an attractive defendant. The present experiment obtained statistical support for this interaction effect using four dependent measures: favorability of impression, similarity, identification, and trust. The findings were interpreted in terms of Lerners’s (1965) theory of the “belief in a just world” and with an expanded version of Walster’s (1966) “defensive attribution” theory.
An overview discusses feminist analyses of oppression, attitudes toward rape victims, and previously studied predictors of individuals' attitudes toward rape victims. To better understand such attitudes, this meta-analysis examines the moderating influences of various rape victim, perpetrator, and crime characteristics' rape myth consistency on gender differences in individuals' perceptions of rape victims (i.e., victim responsibility and blame attributions and rape minimizing attitudes). Consistent with feminist theoretical predictions, results indicated that, overall, men perceived rape victims more negatively than women did. However, this sex difference was moderated by the rape myth consistency within the rape vignettes. Implications for research are discussed.
Victims of rape sometimes suffer from being blamed for their assault. This cross-cultural field experiment investigated victim blame with respect to victim–perpetrator relationship, benevolent sexism (BS), hostile sexism (HS) and belief in a just world (BJW). Participants were recruited in the United Kingdom (N = 75) and Sweden (N = 83). Participants read a vignette depicting either a date rape or a stranger rape and rated the level of victim blame. The victim of a date rape was blamed more than a victim of stranger rape and benevolent sexism was the only significant predictor of this blame. There were differences between British and Swedish informants in BS, HS and BJW, but not level of victim blame.
The present research examines the impact of type of aggression (physical/ psychological) and type of dyad (male aggressor/ female victim and female aggressor/ male victim) on perceptions of a conflict scenario and its combatants. Participants read scenarios depicting a conflict between a married heterosexual couple and reported their impressions of the aggressiveness of the encounter and of the aggressor and victim. Physical aggression was evaluated more negatively (both in terms of the encounter and its combatants) than psychological aggression. Male to female violence was judged more harshly (both in terms of the aggressiveness of the encounter and impressions of the combatants) than female to male violence. Study 2 extended Study 1, assessing the relationship of experience with physical and psychological aggression on perceptions. The results from Study 1 were replicated. Contrary to predictions, experience with physical and psychological aggression did not consistently relate to perceptions of these types of aggression.
Researchers studying a range of psychological phenomena (e.g., theory of mind, emotion, stereotyping and prejudice, interpersonal attraction, etc.) sometimes employ photographs of people as stimuli. In this paper, we introduce the Chicago Face Database, a free resource consisting of 158 high-resolution, standardized photographs of Black and White males and females between the ages of 18 and 40 years and extensive data about these targets. In Study 1, we report pre-testing of these faces, which includes both subjective norming data and objective physical measurements of the images included in the database. In Study 2 we surveyed psychology researchers to assess the suitability of these targets for research purposes and explored factors that were associated with researchers' judgments of suitability. Instructions are outlined for those interested in obtaining access to the stimulus set and accompanying ratings and measures.
In summary: Academics and policy-makers face many challenges in their efforts to reduce intimate partner violence against women. Investing in public education and awareness initiatives is critically important, as is ensuring that these initiatives are well informed, appropriately targeted and properly designed. Finally, constant monitoring will be needed to assess the effectiveness of efforts to change public attitudes that further victimize the women who are victims of intimate partner violence. Language: en
This article analyzes correlates of victim-blaming attitudes regarding partner violence against women (PVAW) among the Spanish general population (N = 1,006). Results showed that victim-blaming attitudes were more common among respondents who were older, less educated, and who placed themselves at the bottom of the social scale. Furthermore, the odds of expressing victim-blaming attitudes were higher among respondents who thought that PVAW was common in society, considered it more acceptable, and knew women victims of partner violence in their circle of friends and family. Implications for public education are discussed.
Preschool children were presented with slides on a computer screen showing a novel object, together with two informants, one with an attractive and one with a less attractive face. Children were asked which informant they would like to ask about the name of the novel object. After hearing the informants provide conflicting names, they were asked who they thought was correct. Children were more likely to endorse names provided by the person with the more attractive face, a bias that cannot be justified on epistemic grounds. The implications of this finding are discussed.
Objective
We aimed to gain insight into the process of help seeking of abused women visiting their family physician (FP). SettingFamily practice in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Method
We used a qualitative method with interviews in a sample of 14 abused women, identified in an earlier cross-sectional survey with the Composite Abuse Scale (CAS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). This qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used to obtain information on the process of seeking help. ResultsUnawareness of the impact of abuse on themselves and their children, unfamiliarity and negative experiences with professionals and fear for their partner hampers abused women to seek professional help. Our study reveals that abused women need informal support by family and friends to ask for professional support. Current health care does not fit into the needs of abused women during the abuse they want more practical support, after the abuse they need also psychological help. In our study, FPs and mothers pay less attention to the impact of witnessing violence on children. Conclusion
When women are unaware of the negative consequences of IPV, the physical and mental well-being of themselves and their children they do not ask for professional support. Abused women view informal support is important in the changing process. FPs should be trained to pay more attention to informal support and be alert to children's well-being.
Examined whether physically attractive stimulus persons, both male and female, are (a) assumed to possess more socially desirable personality traits than physically unattractive stimulus persons, and (b) expected to lead better lives (e.g., be more competent husbands and wives and more successful occupationally) than unattractive stimulus persons. Sex of Subject * Sex of Stimulus Person interactions along these dimensions also were investigated. Results with 30 male and 30 female undergraduates indicate a "what is beautiful is good" stereotype along the physical attractiveness dimension with no Sex of Judge * Sex of Stimulus interaction. Implications of such a stereotype on self-concept development and the course of social interaction are discussed.
The authors present a theory of sexism formulated as ambivalence toward women and validate a corresponding measure, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). The ASI taps 2 positively correlated components of sexism that nevertheless represent opposite evaluative orientations toward women: sexist antipathy or
Hostile Sexism (HS) and a subjectively positive (for sexist men) orientation toward women,
Benevolent Sexism (BS). HS and BS are hypothesized to encompass 3 sources of male ambivalence: Paternalism, Gender Differentiation, and Heterosexuality. Six ASI studies on 2,250 respondents established convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. Overall ASI scores predict ambivalent attitudes toward women, the HS scale correlates with negative attitudes toward and stereotypes about women, and the BS scale (for nonstudent men only) correlates with positive attitudes and stereotypes about women. A copy of the ASI is provided, with scoring instructions, as a tool for further explorations of sexist ambivalence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The just world hypothesis states that people have a need to believe that their environment is a just and orderly place where people usually get what they deserve. The present article reviews the experimental research that has been generated by the just world hypothesis. Considerable attention is devoted to an experiment by M. J. Lerner and C. H. Simmons (see record
1966-11086-001). In light of the existing empirical findings, an elaboration of the initial hypothesis is offered, and it is suggested that people's need to believe in a just world affects their reaction to the innocent suffering of others. Finally, recurrent conceptual misinterpretations and methodological errors found in the literature are identified. (73 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Empirical evidence to the robustness of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) concerning violation of the normality assumption is presented by means of Monte Carlo methods. High-quality samples underlying normally, rectangularly, and exponentially distributed basic populations are created by drawing samples which consist of random numbers from respective generators, checking their goodness of fit, and allowing only the best 10% to take part in the investigation. A one-way fixed-effect design with three groups of 25 values each is chosen. Effect-sizes are implemented in the samples and varied over a broad range. Comparing the outcomes of the ANOVA calculations for the different types of distributions, gives reason to regard the ANOVA as robust. Both, the empirical type I error α and the empirical type II error β remain constant under violation. Moreover, regression analysis identifies the factor “type of distribution” as not significant in explanation of the ANOVA results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This research examines one mechanism by which people decide whether to trust strangers. Using a laboratory setting that provides subjects with controlled information about their counterparts, we test whether attractive subjects gain a “beauty premium” in a game involving trust and reciprocity. Attractive trustees are viewed as more trustworthy; they are trusted at higher rates and as a consequence earn more in the first stage of the game. Attractiveness does not guarantee higher earnings, as we find a “beauty penalty” attached to attractive trusters in the second stage of the game. This penalty arises because attractive trusters do not live up to expectations of them on the part of the trustees. Trustees withhold repayment when their expectations are dashed. This punishment is larger when the disappointing truster is attractive.
Previous research has shown that people perceive intimate partner violence (IPV) as more serious in cases involving a male
perpetrator and female victim versus other gender combinations. This study is the first to explore reasons for these differences.
181 undergraduates at a U.S. southeastern college rated one of four dating violence vignettes that varied by perpetrator and
victim gender. Participants viewed male-on-female violence as more frightening primarily because males are stronger and bigger
than female perpetrators. Physical differences were rated as significantly more important causes of fear than other personality/relationship
dynamics. Because males are actually stronger and bigger than females, it appears that gendered perceptions of violence are
based in real-world knowledge of gender differences, not merely gender stereotypes.
KeywordsDating violence-Intimate partner violence-Asymmetry
Legal scholars have argued that laws have an expressive function, specifically that sexual assault laws may convey social-level messages that victims are culpable for crimes against them. In a university sample, we conducted the first experimental test of legal scholars’ proposal, hypothesizing that legal messages—specifically their clarity and effectiveness in conveying that sexual assault is a crime—affect victim culpability attributions. Results demonstrated that greater culpability was attributed to a victim of sexual assault within a context expressing unclear and ineffective sexual assault law than within a context clearly and effectively expressing that sexual assault is a crime. We also garnered empirical support for a mediation model, that is, negative affective reactions to a victim statistically accounted for the relationship between expressed legal context and victim culpability attributions. Implications for future psycholegal research and potential legal reforms are discussed.
The existence of domestic violence is closely linked to several ideological factors that include sexism and other beliefs about society in general, namely the belief in a just world. In this study, which involved 485 people of both sexes aged between 18 and 70 years, we analyzed the influence of these ideological variables of the perceivers and characteristics of the situation on judgments of a gender aggression--blaming the victim and exonerating the perpetrator. Results showed differences in the reactions of observers depending on the cause that triggered the aggression. Participants blamed the victim and exonerated the aggressor more when no cause of the aggression was mentioned than when a cause was mentioned (the woman wanted to separate, to see an old male friend, or simply to take a trip with her female friends). We also found clear effects of hostile sexism and just world beliefs on the dependent variables. Results showed that the influence of just world beliefs depended on the fact of mention or not a cause for the aggression.
Background
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex phenomenon and some research suggests that there are qualitatively distinct IPV types. However, little is known about the risk factors associated with different IPV types.
Methods
Data from Violence against women: an European Union (EU)-wide survey, conducted by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights was used. Latent class analysis (LCA) was employed to identify distinct IPV patterns based on the intensity of eight forms of violence by current partners (n=30 675). Multilevel multinomial logistic regression was used to examine individual and country-level risk factors associated with the outcome IPV patterns.
Results
A five-class solution was selected based on the LCA results. Two classes encompassed severe coercive IPV: the intimate terrorism class (1.5%) also comprised extensive physical violence whereas the high coercive control class (2.0%) did not. The partner’s alcohol abuse, violent behaviour outside the relationship and the woman’s abuse in childhood were the main individual factors positively associated with IPV. The country’s gender equality levels were negatively associated with the odds of experiencing intimate terrorism (adjusted OR, aOR 0.35, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.56) and high coercive control (aOR 0.63, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.85) versus no IPV. Although the effects of most individual risk factors were found universally for all IPV patterns, the strongest associations were typically revealed for the intimate terrorism pattern.
Conclusion
The results support the importance of coercive control as a factor differentiating between IPV types and also highlight the need to consider IPV typologies in research. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.
Objective: This study aims to examine factors related to emotional abuse, an understudied type of intimate partner violence (IPV), among a sample of college students. Participants: 601 undergraduates from one large public university in the Midwestern United States (Spring 2017) and 756 undergraduates from one large public university in the Southern United States (Fall 2019) participated in the study. Methods: Participants completed an online survey measuring demographic information, behavioral variables (viewing porn, alcohol consumption, and hooking up), and history of violence (witnessing a father abuse his spouse, emotional abuse history). Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression analyses predicting emotional abuse victimization were conducted. Results: Results indicate female, white, older students were more likely to report emotional abuse. Also, students witnessing their father abuse his spouse, frequent pornography use, increased alcohol use, and frequent hookups increased odds of emotional abuse. Conclusion: College campuses should consider emphasizing emotional abuse in IPV programing.
This article examines the feminist hashtag #MeToo. Like other feminist hashtags, #MeToo responds to public misunderstanding, disbelief, or complacency surrounding violence against women. This problem, I argue, is in part a byproduct of digital information sharing that separates bodies from the information that represents them, and cultural understandings of sexual assault and harassment that support rape culture. I draw on a new materialist approach, infused with feminist information studies, to examine the ways in which #MeToo acts as a rhetorical census that re-embodies information and resists rape culture.
An investigation of cross-cultural differences between the United States, Japan, and China in perceptions of male to female intimate partner violence, and in the extent to which gender and traditional attitudes toward women related to these perceptions. College students (n = 943) read two fictitious scenarios describing marital and dating violence. MANOVA results showed gender differences in the perceptions of violence between the three countries. Male participants had more traditional attitudes toward women and placed more blame on female victims. The magnitude of the difference between women's and men's scores was much smaller for Japanese students than for American and Chinese students. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that the effects of respondent gender were reduced when traditional attitudes toward women were taken into account. Differences in beliefs about appropriate gender roles still exist among college students in these countries and may be related to socially tolerant attitudes toward violence against women.
Research on blaming victims of female interpersonal violence (IPV) has evolved over the past 25 to 30 years, though often in a piecemeal fashion. Studies often blend attitudes toward women, justification for IPV, and blame in various ways depending on the instrument and/or scale being used. The current study isolates these variables more specifically to determine the unique effects attitudes toward women and justification have on blaming female victims of IPV. It also adds a new dimension by exploring general victim-blaming views that are not specifically related to IPV to determine whether this variable plays a role in assigning blame to victims of IPV. Implications for educational programming also are discussed.
Rape distorts one of the most intimate forms of human interaction. Those who rape do so for a number of reasons, but they basically involve the motives of anger, power, eroticized cruelty, and opportunistic mating. No single set of cognitive, psychodynamic, psychopathological, or neuropsychological factors has been identified in those who commit sexual assault, probably due to the heterogeneity of this offender group. It is thus important to understand the diversity of this crime category in order to devise more effective means of adjudicating, treating, and deterring it. As a reproductive strategy, rape has certain risks as well as benefits, which accounts for it persistence in human populations as a minority mating tactic. Although most women fear rape by strangers, they are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know, especially their own mate. Alcohol and substance use plays a large role in many rapes. Rape can take both a physical and psychological toll on its victims, and clinicians must continue to explore more effective ways to treat rape survivors and to develop proactive strategies to help women prevent initial victimization and revictimization.
This review of the literature examines the effect of contextual variables (i.e., characteristics of the perpetrator and victims, observer characteristics) on perceptions of physical and psychological aggression in close relationships. Observers view physical aggression as more serious, harmful, abusive, and more deserving of punishment than psychological aggression, male aggression as more serious than female aggression, and aggression in committed, exclusive relationships as more serious than aggression in casual ones. Victims of psychological aggression, however, perceive it as more harmful than physical aggression and consider the effects to be longer-lasting. The disparity between observer and victim perceptions of physical and psychological aggression extends to mental health professionals, who tend to judge the severity of aggressive behaviors based on frequency and duration of the actions instead of perpetrator intent. This difference of opinion may influence the reporting of and intervention in physically or psychologically aggressive situations, and how these types of aggression are treated by legal professionals, especially if those legal professionals are informed about aggressive romantic relationships by third-party observers whose opinions of the situation differ from those of the victims.
The purpose of the present study was to test the roles of specific attribution theories in the assignment of blame for intimate partner violence (IPV). Three hundred and seven undergraduate students read written vignettes depicting male-to-female IPV and assigned blame to the perpetrator and victim. Three variables were manipulated in the vignettes: victim behavior, perpetrator expectancy (target- and category-based expectancy), and severity of violence. Hypotheses were made based on several attribution theories (e.g., Kelley, 1972; Jones & McGillis, 1976). Results found that observers discounted the role of the perpetrator in the act of violence and placed more blame on the victim when the victim was verbally aggressive priorto the assault. Participants also assigned more blame to the victim when there was a target-based nonviolent expectancy about the perpetrators (i.e., described as passive with no history of violence) and the victim was verbally aggressive prior to the assault. However, participants blamed the victim more when there was a category-based nonviolent expectancy about the perpetrator (i.e., described as a pastor), moderate violence was used, and the victim was not verbally aggressive prior to the assault. Severity of violence influenced blame attributions for the perpetrator only when another mitigating factor was also present, such as victim aggression or nonviolent perpetrator expectancies. Attributions differed in terms of gender of the observer as well; men were more influenced by victim aggression when assigning blame to the victim and reduced blame to the perpetrator when the victim was aggressive and moderate violence was used. Several attribution theories were helpful in explaining the findings.
Abstract Cyberbullying victims' success in coping with bullying largely depends on schoolmates and other bystanders' social support. However, factors influencing the degree of social support have as yet not been investigated. In this article, the concept of victim blaming is applied to cyberbullying incidents. It is assumed that a cyberbullying victim receives less social support when the victim's behavior is perceived as very overt. It is further assumed that this effect's underlying process is the partial attribution of responsibility for the incident to the victim and not to the bully. The hypotheses are tested with a 2×2 online experiment. In this experiment, varying online self-presentations of a fictitious female cyberbullying victim were presented to 586 Germans aged 16-22. The victim's public Facebook profile was manipulated in terms of the victim's extraversion and the amount of personal information disclosed. The results support the hypotheses. Participants attributed more responsibility for the bullying incident to the victim when the victim was presented as extraverted and very open in revealing personal information. This diminished social support for the victim. The effect was partially mediated by the victim's perceived attractiveness. The study implies that concepts from victimization research can enhance our understanding of cyberbullying incidents. Among other factors, the victim's specific personal characteristics deserve more consideration-not only with regard to the incident itself but also regarding subsequent social dynamics and coping mechanisms.
Despite the increasing participation of women in the work force, they are still underrepresented in higher-level management positions. As a result, executive women may often be the only female in their work group. A solo woman executive within a group of men may, because of the phenomenon of perceptual distinctiveness, be subject to attributional distortion regarding her competence. Stereotypic assumptions about her may be further exaggerated depending on the level of her physical attractiveness. The present study examined the effects of gender, attractiveness, and group sex composition within a business setting. Subjects saw a male or a female executive in a brain-storming session with other executives who were either all male or all female. The target person was either low, moderate, or high in physical attractiveness. Effects of these variables on ratings of professional competence and social skills were assessed. Analyses revealed attractive targets were rated as more socially skilled but less competent than their moderately attractive counterparts. This was tempered, however, by the finding that targets on an opposite-sex board of executives generally were perceived as higher in social skill than targets in a same-sex group. Finally, targets in male as opposed to female groups were perceived as more competent, suggesting that stereotypic perceptions about the group may override sex stereotyping of individuals within those groups.
Despite the important contributions of Burt's (1980)8.
Burt , M. R. l980. Cultural myths and support for rape. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38: 217–230. View all references Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, no similar valid and reliable measure of domestic violence myths currently exists. This article describes the development and initial validation of the Domestic Violence Myth Acceptance Scale (DVMAS). In the first study, an initial pool of 80 items was evaluated and an 18-item instrument constructed. A second validation study indicated that the DVMAS had excellent reliability (alpha = .88) and good face and content validity as well as good indications of convergent, construct, and known groups validity. Divergent validity was only partially supported. The studies also indicated that domestic violence myths serve individual psychological functions as well as social functions related to blaming the victim, exonerating the perpetrator, and minimizing the violence.
Olivola and Todorov (Elected in 100 milliseconds: appearance-based trait inferences and voting. J Nonverbal Behav, 2010) provide a convincing demonstration that competence ratings based on 1-second exposures to paired photos of US congressional
candidates predict election outcomes at better than chance levels. However, they do not account for variation in competence
judgments. In their analysis, Olivola and Todorov show that attractiveness, familiarity, babyfacedness and age are proximal
predictors of vote choice, but find that after controlling for competence these factors no longer reliably influence the margin
of electoral victory. Drawing on well-documented halo effects of attractiveness on character-based inferences and the extensive
literature on mere exposure effects, we re-organize Olivola and Todorov’s analysis into a simple path model to explore the
causal ordering of these factors. We find that spontaneous assessments of attractiveness and familiarity occur prior to attributions
of competence, and thus exert a downstream effect on judgments of competence.
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.
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 goal of the present study was to create and validate a global belief in a just world scale and to assess the psychometric properties of the multidimensional just world scale using subjects in the United States. The desirable psychometric properties of the global belief in a just world scale make it a viable alternative to Rubin and Peplau's (Journal of Social Issues, 31, 65–90, 1975) just world scale. Analysis of the multidimensional just world scale suggests that the scale consists of three factors—interpersonal justice, socio-political justice, and cynicism/fatalism—and has poor psychometric properties. Both the global and multidimensional belief in a just world scale correlate positively with trust and internal locus of control.
In view of certain psychometric deficiencies of the original Psychoticism scale, an attempt was made to improve the scale by adding new items. It was attempted to increase the internal reliability of the scale, improve the shape of the distribution and increase the mean and variance score. Two different studies are discussed. Reliabilities are now somewhat improved, distributions are closer to normal and mean scores are higher than on the old scale. Four new short 12-item scales for the measurement of P, E, N and L are also given.
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.