Gender Differences in the Perception of Prisoner Abuse

Abstract

We examined gender stereotypes and perceptions of aggression in 743 US psychology students at a northeastern university in the USA. Participants rated a vignette depicting torture of an Iraqi prisoner by an American soldier in which the gender of prisoner and guard were varied. The results showed that female participants viewed torture more negatively than male participants. Additionally, participants perceived the torture and killing of a female prisoner warranted significant compensation to her family. However, participants perceived violent acts by a male guard to be as serious as for a female guard, suggesting a shift in perceptions of gender role stereotypes. Our findings demonstrate a change in the gender role stereotyping for females in the military and suggest a number of future studies.

When and why we torture: A review of psychology research.

“…Taken together, this research suggests that while people generally hold negative views of torture, they also justify its use at least some of the time. While there are likely many reasons why this happens, the empirical evidence to date has identified personality characteristics and political ideology (Homant & Witkowski, 2011; Houck & Conway, 2013), gender (Fallahi et al, 2008), and biased beliefs about torture (e.g., Arrigo & Wagner, 2007; Houck, Conway, & Repke, 2014; Janoff-Bulman, 2007; Tarrant et al, 2012) as factors that can contribute to the attitude that torture is sometimes justified. What implications do these findings have, and how can we translate what we know from psychology research to applied torture contexts?…”

“…For example, research has found that people hold more favorable views of torture if they score high on right-wing authoritarianism (Benjamin, 2016), social dominance orientation, and political conservatism (Homant & Witkowski, 2011; Houck & Conway, 2013). Other work suggests that males view torture much less negatively than females (Fallahi, Austad, Keishman, Gendron, & Wood, 2008).…”