Not a night walk in the park: Victim blame in common rape situations and the effects of age

• Substantial research has been conducted in the field of victim blaming, but still we do not fully understand the complexity of how and why people tend to blame rape victims. Two aspects that have been neglected in previous research are age differences and acquaintance rape. Since the risk of victimization is higher among young adults, we conducted three experiments, using settings where rapes may occur but not typically included in previous research. In this multi-experiment study a total of 884 Swedish adolescents and adults from a community sample read a scenario describing a rape and thereafter provided ratings of victim blame. The victim’s age (18 or 31 years), was manipulated but the relation between victim and perpetrator (as acquaintances) was held constant. We used victim age, participant age and participant gender as independent variables and victim blame as the dependent variable. We analyzed all results through ANCOVAs using participants’ level of General Belief in a Just World (GBJW) as a covariate. Across all experiments, we found that levels of GBJW correlated positively with levels of victim blame and that age and gender are important factors to include in studies of attributed victim blame. Interestingly, the results varied markedly across type of rape situation. In experiment one (the rape took place at a house party setting) results showed that adolescent participants were more victim blaming overall, as we predicted, and in interaction with victim age, they blamed the adult victim more than did the adult participants. In experiment two (the rape took place at a house party setting and the victim voluntarily kissed the perpetrator prior to the rape) we found both age and gender differences. Female adults attributed more victim blame than did female adolescents and male adolescents attributed more victim blame than female adolescents did. In the last experiment (the rape took place in the victim’s apartment where she and the perpetrator did school work together) we found a significant main effect for gender, where male participants attributed more blame to the victim than female participants. This study gives valuable insights in the complexity of attitudes and attributions of blame in rape cases.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi -- Tillämpad psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology -- Applied Psychology (hsv//eng)

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