Predicting Prosocial Behavior Toward Sex-Trafficked Persons: The Roles of Empathy, Belief in a Just World, and Attitudes Toward Prostitution

Silver, Kristin E.; Karakurt, Günnur; Boysen, Sarah T.

doi:10.1080/10926771.2015.1070231

Cited by 29 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Surprisingly, community members were more aware of sex trafficking, saw it as most serious, and concerning, but viewed labor trafficking as more relevant to their community. Switching focus, Silver et al (2015) went beyond the background characteristics of the trafficking survivor by presenting a vignette in which a woman engaged in sex work either forcibly or voluntarily and found that participants rated the trafficked woman less responsible for her behavior, but only when she was a citizen, and not when she was an immigrant.…”

Section: Psychology Of Sex Trafficking Judgments Public Sentiment And...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The public’s judgment of sex trafficked women: Blaming the victim?

Wiener¹,

Berry²,

Wertheimer³

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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A victim-centered approach to fighting sex trafficking can result in apprehension and prosecution of traffickers and offer needed services to survivors. However, law enforcement officers frequently arrest sextrafficking survivors for prostitution in accordance with state law. This study examined the psychology of public reactions and judgments of sex-trafficking survivors demonstrating the importance of situational factors, cognitive stereotypes, and moral emotions. Using Stereotype Content Modeling to measure the stereotypes that 762 community members held about prostitutes, we found shared stereotypes that were low in competence (i.e., capable and skilled) and warmth (i.e., good-natured and friendly). These participants later read modified case facts from United States v. Bell (United States v. Bell, 761 F.3d (8th Cir. 2014)) that varied survivor history of prostitution, vulnerability, and prostitution as a subsequent livelihood. Participants who stereotyped prostitutes as low in warmth and competence were the ones most certain police should arrest the survivor. Moral emotion analyses further showed that a survivor with no prior prostitution history and who came from a nonvulnerable background invoked disgust and contempt, which predicted a higher certainty of the arrest. Moral emotions fully mediated the relationship between the interacting case facts and arrest certainty for the trafficking survivor. Future directions and policy implications are discussed. Public Significance StatementParticipants who stereotyped prostitutes as low in warmth and competence were more certain police should arrest the survivor of sex trafficking for violating prostitution laws as were those who read about a survivor with no prior prostitution history and who came from a nonvulnerable background, in part, as a result of the disgust and contempt which people felt toward the survivor. The results suggest that efforts to educate the public about victim-centered approaches to sex trafficking could lead to healthier outcomes for the survivors as well as more effective prosecution of traffickers.

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Section: Psychology Of Sex Trafficking Judgments Public Sentiment And...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The public’s judgment of sex trafficked women: Blaming the victim?

Wiener¹,

Berry²,

Wertheimer³

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The pattern of behavioral predictions outlined here for each subfacet of empathy has recently been partially documented by researchers Silver et al (2015). These researchers found that both EC and PT predicted participant’s reported likelihood of engaging in proactive behaviors to help women forcibly involved in prostitution.…”

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confidence: 61%

Helpful and Hurtful Empathy: How the Interplay of Empathy, Shame, and Anger Predicts Responses to Hypothetical Rape Disclosures

Martingano

2020

J Interpers Violence

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Responses to rape victims, although often helpful, can be hurtful and hinder victims’ health and recovery. Adopting a multidimensional approach to dispositional empathy, this research investigated how different subfacets of empathy predict responses to hypothetical rape victims. Before reading a sexual assault scenario, 282 participants completed measures of cognitive and emotional empathy. Participants’ subsequent emotional arousal was measured by self-report, as were their intentions to help, avoid, or blame the victim. A path model demonstrated that dispositional empathy predicted behavioral intentions toward hypothetical rape victims by altering their vulnerability to experience shame or anger. People who tended to feel personal distress were more likely to mirror rape victims’ assumed shame. Due to its antisocial nature, experiencing shame, in turn, led to hurtful behaviors such as blaming or distancing oneself from the victim. On the other hand, people who tended to feel empathic concern were more likely to feel anger on behalf of the victim following a rape disclosure. Anger is a motivating force for action and promotes helping behavior. A second study demonstrated that these results appear unique to rape disclosure, namely, participants reactions to nonsexual assault were unsuccessfully captured by this model. Understanding how empathetic arousal of shame can lead to hurtful intentions toward rape victims has important implications for future interventions: Programs that draw attention to the shame or humiliation experienced by rape victims may do more harm than good. For instance, some anti-rape campaigns portray pictures of women covering their faces. These campaigns, however well intentioned, may discourage people from helping victims because they may evoke feelings of shame in the perceiver. On the other hand, societal movements, such as the #Metoo movement, may be particularly effective by reducing the shame surrounding sexual assault and promote helpful behaviors.

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“…In Experiment 2, we used a vignette that did not provide the circumstances under which the person went missing. Silver et al (2015) found that participants had higher levels of empathy for women who were victims of human sex trafficking (perceived involuntary) than women who were sex workers (perceived voluntary). Relatedly, researchers have found that people were more emphatic toward and engaged in less victim blaming toward sexual assault victims who were not sex workers (perceived involuntary) than those who were sex workers (perceived voluntary) (Sprankle et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of empathy on search efforts for missing persons

Saraqini

Nesmith

Stear

et al. 2022

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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People have difficulty sighting missing persons, partially because the task requires people's limited cognitive resources. We examined whether empathy increases search behaviors and performance. We manipulated empathy felt toward a formerly (E1) and actively (E2) missing person. We measured willingness to volunteer to search for missing people in general (E1) and the actively missing person (E2). We measured search performance (E1) and time spent studying the missing person's poster (E2).The empathy manipulation affected willingness to search for the actively missing person (E2, H4), but not missing people in general (E1, H1). The empathy manipulation did not impact search behavior: effort toward searching (E1, H2 & 3) or time spent studying a missing persons poster (E2, H5). We reasoned that if empathy increased search behaviors, it could be induced in actual missing persons cases to increase recovery rates, but we found little evidence to support empathy as an effective intervention.

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Predicting Prosocial Behavior Toward Sex-Trafficked Persons: The Roles of Empathy, Belief in a Just World, and Attitudes Toward Prostitution

Cited by 29 publications

References 34 publications

The public’s judgment of sex trafficked women: Blaming the victim?

The public’s judgment of sex trafficked women: Blaming the victim?

Helpful and Hurtful Empathy: How the Interplay of Empathy, Shame, and Anger Predicts Responses to Hypothetical Rape Disclosures

The effects of empathy on search efforts for missing persons

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