Situational variables or beliefs? A multifaceted approach to understanding blame attributions

ABSTRACT

Are victim and perpetrator blame attributions affected more by situational-specific variables or observers’ basic motives and personal beliefs? In three experiments, varying the scenario setting, the effects of victim and participant age, participant gender, sympathy for the victim, trust in the justice system, belief in a just world and acceptance of rape myths were investigated. In total, 877 Swedish adolescents and adults read scenarios reflecting common acquaintance rape situations. Victim age (18 or 31) was manipulated, but did not affect attributed blame. Effects of participant age and gender varied markedly across the three experiments. Sympathy for the victim and acceptance of rape myths were stronger predictors than belief in a just world. Consistently, blame attributions were found to be more affected by personal beliefs than situational-specific variables.

KEYWORDS:

• Rape
• victim blame
• just world beliefs
• sympathy
• rape myths

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Kerstin Adolfsson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4018-1104

Notes

1 Three participants were 21, 21 and 23 years old. However, they were included since they were students at high school level.

2 χ²(2, N = 871) = 19.56, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .15.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority [grant number 02836/2015], given to the second author.