Famous or Infamous? The Influence of Celebrity Status and Race on Perceptions of Responsibility for Rape

The Effects of Victim and Perpetrator Characteristics on Ratings of Guilt in a Sexual Assault Case

“…Furthermore, athletes who are Black may be less likely to benefit from protections of celebrity than athletes who are White. This finding would be consistent with research conducted by Knight and colleagues (2001) showing that celebrity status was a liability for Black movie stars while an asset for White movie stars in a hypothetical sexual assault case. Research has also shown that stereotypes about White athletes differ from stereotypes about Black athletes (e.g., Billings, 2004; Stone, Perry, & Darley, 1997; Thomas, Good, & Gross, 2015).…”

“…Although we are not aware of any research that associates celebrity status with actual sexual assault perpetration (i.e., it is nondiagnostic of sexual assault), some research has shown that participants believe that celebrity status provides information about sexual assault perpetration (i.e., they use nondiagnostic information inappropriately). Research by Knight and colleagues (2001) showed that celebrity status had protective benefits for White perpetrators but did not offer the same protection for Black perpetrators in a hypothetical sexual assault. Pica, Sheahan, and Pozzulo (2017) found greater victim blame when the perpetrator was a star athlete (than a bartender), but they did not independently manipulate celebrity status and athlete status.…”

“…Most research on sexual assault and culpability has focused on (female) victim characteristics, but some research has investigated (male) perpetrator characteristics for their impact on attitudes about sexual assault cases. One of the most commonly studied perpetrator characteristics has been race, but research has been mixed, with some research showing that men of color are more likely to be found guilty of and receive harsher punishments for sexual assault than White men (e.g., Frazier & Haney, 1996; Wriggins, 1983), whereas other research has shown no main effect for perpetrators’ race in sexual assault cases (e.g., Bouffard, 2000; Hymes, Leinart, Rowe, & Rogers, 1993; Knight, Guiliano, & Sanchez-Ross, 2001; Spears & Spohn, 1996). While few other perpetrator characteristics have been studied for their impact on attributions of blame in sexual assault cases, research has found that low socioeconomic status (SES) perpetrators received stronger punishments from mock juries than high SES perpetrators (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994), and unattractive perpetrators were more likely to be found guilty of a hypothetical sexual assault than attractive perpetrators (Bagby, Parker, Rector, & Kalemba, 1994).…”

“…We also expected a three-way interaction between perpetrator’s celebrity status, perpetrator’s athlete status, and victim’s speed of reporting such that the perpetrator characteristics would only be used for participants’ judgments when the victim reported immediately and there would be no interaction between celebrity status and athlete status when the victim delayed reporting (Hypothesis 2a). Although we found no research to date on perceptions of athletes and sexual assault, we thought that the celebrity status of a professional athlete might serve a protective function for the athlete [given the research on celebrities by Knight and colleagues (2001), star athletes by Pica and colleagues (2017), and the research on low professional athlete convictions by Benedict and Klein (1997)]. However, this protective status may disappear and people may rely on associations between aggression and athletes, especially football players (Cox, 1998; Singer, 1975), when they are not celebrities.…”

Racial Bias in Juridic Judgment at Private and Public Levels

“…Most laboratory studies that have found evidence of racial bias have studied the judgments of individual mock jurors without looking at what happens when they become part of an interacting group of jurors (Field, 1979;Hymes, Leinhart, Rowe, & Rodgers, 1993;Johnson, Whitestone, Jackson, & Gatto, 1995;Knight, Giuliano, & Sanchez-Ross, 2001;Skolnick & Shaw, 1997;Ugwuegbu, 1979;Wuensch, Campbell, Kesler, & Moore, 2002). The current study examines discrimination against Black plaintiffs in a simulated civil trial.…”