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Abstract
The current study surveyed 530 college students to investigate perceptions of victim responsibility or blame in heterosexual stalking situations using a vignette design. The vignettes manipulated the gender of the victim and offender, as well as the prior relationship between the victim and offender. Regression results revealed that while perceived victim blame was low overall among the sample, victims of known offenders received the most blame, especially if they engaged in casual sex practices. Gender of the victim and offender in the vignette did not significantly affect the perceptions of victim blame. Contrary to previous literature, male respondents were significantly less likely than female respondents to assign blame to the victim, particularly when the victim was a male being pursued by a female stalker. Also, white respondents were significantly less likely than nonwhite respondents to attribute blame to the victim. Implications for educational programs or other campus initiatives to address victim-blaming attitudes and stalking are discussed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 A histogram of the dependent variable appeared positively skewed; however, further inspection of the normality Q-Q Plot showed the observed values are closely aligned with those expected under normality (skewness statistic: 1.063; kurtosis statistic .236).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Amy I. Cass
Amy I. Cass, Ph.D. is an associate professor at California State University, Fullerton. Her research interests include criminal justice pedagogy, criminological theory, gender and crime, and crime control and prevention. Some of her work has been published in Violence and Victims, American Journal of Criminal Justice, Sex Roles, Journal of Criminal Justice Education, and Western Criminology Review.