Attribution of blame to rape victims among therapists and non-therapists
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, Volume 25, Issue 1, Pages 103 - 120, Special Issue: Current Directions
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Yael Idisis, Sarah Ben-David, Efrat Ben-Nachum
"Among both therapists and non-therapists there was a slight general tendency to blame the victim. As expected, women were blamed more than men. Also, men attributed less blame to male victims then did women, whereas women attributed less blame to female victims then did men. These results support the theories of modular judgment and of defensive attribution. As for judgment of severity of the rape, therapists judged the rapes as slightly more severe. Similar results were found regarding judgment of deserved punishment. We suggest further investigation of the connection between blame attribution and rape myths, which may facilitate blaming the victim." [Sub required]