Attribution of Responsibility to Victims of Rape and Robbery as a Function of Identification With the Criminal

Abstract

Two experimental studies of attribution in a hypothetical criminal situation featuring a male criminal and a female victim used the same experimental design and independent variables. The first dependent measure in both studies was recommended imprisonment for the male criminal. The second dependent measure was fault attributed to the female victim in the first experiment and perceived likelihood of crime in the second. Each experiment had a 2 (subject’s involvement: identifying or objective subjects) × 2 (type of crime: robbery or rape) × 2 (time of crime: morning or night) × 2 (victim’s prior experience of crime: experienced or inexperienced victim} factorial design with 15 subjects per cell, the subjects being male undergraduate students of the University of Bombay. Subject’s involvement was manipulated through instructions either to identify with the criminal or to be objective. The other independent variables were manipulated through appropriate variations in a criminal case account. Recommended imprisonment was longer for rape than for robbery in both experiments. Attributed victim’s fault was greater for the night crime than for the morning crime, and perceived likelihood was greater for robbery than for rape and greater for the night crime than for the morning crime.