Blaming the Black Victim: the Victim’s Skin Color and Belief in a Just World

Abstract

Gender and skin color are recognized factors that influence social judgments. We approach this problem by proposing that the color of the victim's skin and the sex of the observers will influence the blaming of a woman for violence she has suffered, just as the belief in a just world (BJW) will be responsible for predicting greater blaming of the victim. In Study 1 (N = 152), after manipulating the victim's skin color, we identified that black victims were more blamed than whites and that men were blaming more than women. Study 2 (N = 234) investigated the hypothesis that BJW acts as a moderator of the relationship between the victim's skin color, the participant's gender, and the victim's blame. Although the hypothetical triple interaction was not significant, the paired comparisons showed that among participants with high adherence to BJW, male participants placed more blame than female participants, and this blame was even greater in the condition in which the victim was black. These results are discussed in light of the importance of the studies on blaming women victims of sexual violence, taking into consideration a set of characteristics of the victim as well as more ideological aspects, such as the BJW.Keywords Blaming the victim • Belief in a just world • Violence against women • Culpabilización de la Víctima • Creencia en un mundo justo • Violencia contra la mujer. Culpabilização da vítima negra: cor da pele da vítima e crença no mundo justoResumo O gênero e a cor da pele são reconhecidamente fatores que influenciam nos julgamentos sociais. Abordamos este problema propondo que a cor da pele da vítima e o sexo * Layanne Vieira Linhares