Who Gets Blamed for Rapes: Effects of Immigration Status on the Attribution of Blame Toward Victims and Perpetrators

Abstract

This study examines the influence of the victim's immigration status, perpetrator's immigration status, and participant's immigration status on victim and perpetrator blame attributions. In addition, comparisons between men and women were made. Participants read a rape vignette in the form of a newspaper article and subsequently attributed victim and perpetrator blame. A 2 (victim's immigration status) × 2 (perpetrator's immigration status) × 2 (participant's immigration status) × 2 (gender of participant) between-subjects design was used. Measures of blame attributions toward the victim and perpetrator were used as dependent variables. The main results showed that participants with an immigrant background and native males attributed significantly more victim and less perpetrator blame. An interaction involving victim and perpetrator immigration status emerged for female participants and were subsequently discussed, as well as suggestions for future research.

None of My Business? An Experiment Analyzing Willingness to Formally Report Incidents of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women

“…The evidence shows that, when the aggression is perceived as the result of certain circumstances related to the perpetrator (e.g., substance use), respondents tend to consider that their interventions are of limited utility (Cinquegrana et al, 2018;Taylor & Sorenson, 2005). Regarding the perpetrator's immigration status, although studies in the field of attitudes toward rape victims have shown the relevance of this variable (Sjöberg & Sarwar, 2017), most studies examining the willingness to report IPVAW scenarios have not specified the immigration status of either victims or perpetrators. To our knowledge, there is only one study that examined the effect of ethnicity in a sample of college students, finding that responses were not influenced by the ethnicity of the perpetrator (West & Wandrei, 2002).…”

Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Relationship Between Modern Racism and Rape Blaming Attitudes among Swedish Students and Community Members

“…Similar to Sjöberg and Sarwar (2020) and Strömwall et al. (2014) , the rape vignette used was presented as a short newspaper article (see the Appendix).…”

“…Immigration status was decided based on where the participant’s parents were born. When at least one parent was born outside of Sweden, the participant was deemed to have an immigrant background in line with Sjöberg and Sarwar (2020) , and the historical way immigration status was determined by Statistics Sweden (2002) .…”

“…Previous research suggests that racism and sexism are related ( Aghasaleh, 2018 ; Bäckström & Björklund, 2007 ; Bergh et al., 2016 ), and may even be explained by similar underlying constructs, such as the social dominance orientation, empathy, or right-wing authoritarianism ( Bäckström & Björklund, 2007 ), indicating that racism and sexism, as well as other types of prejudices, share fundamental properties. It could be argued that a subtle form of sexism might be rape victim blaming attitudes, which have been studied in several previous studies (e.g., Canto et al., 2018 ; Donovan, 2007 ; George & Martinez, 2002 ; Katz et al., 2017 ; Sjöberg & Sarwar, 2020 ; Strömwall et al., 2014). Specifically, when asked to evaluate an ambiguous rape situation, it could be hypothesized that individuals high in racism would be more prone to blame a rape victim and exculpate the perpetrator compared to individuals low in racism.…”

Percepciones y sentimientos hacia las víctimas: Resultados de un experimento split-ballot

“…Además, la mayor parte de los estudios llevados a cabo en este ámbito se han limitado a analizar las actitudes hacia las víctimas de un delito muy concreto como es la violación. Estos estudios han puesto de relieve la tendencia generalizada a culpabilizar a las víctimas por lo ocurrido (Cameron & Stritzke, 2003;Niemi & Young, 2014Rini, 2015;Sjöberg, & Sarwar, 2017) y han señalado la necesidad de analizar determinados elementos, como el tipo de delitos, las creencias estereotipadas sobre las víctimas o las circunstancias en las que ocurren los hechos, en el estudio de las actitudes hacia las víctimas.…”