Recentering our tendencies: Immigrant youth development and the importance of context in social work research

According to Weiner’s model, help giving has various determinants such as social and individual causes, affective reactions, and responsibility. The aim of this study was (1) to examine the influence of bullying acts, the victim’s behavior at work, and revictimization on equity judgments and the perceived responsibility of perpetrators and victims; and (2) to test the determinants of help decisions. Twelve vignettes of bullying at work submitted to 133 participants varied according to the severity of bullying, the victim’s pro- or antisocial behaviors, and the victim’s antecedents. The results showed that the situation was judged less equitable, the victim less responsible, and the perpetrator more responsible, and the intention of help was increased, (1) when the perpetrator’s acts were serious, and (2) when the bullied person had shown prosocial behavior versus antisocial behavior. The help increased more (1) when the perpetrator’s acts were harmful and (2) when the victim had shown prosocial behaviors.     

Perceptions of child sexual abuse:victim and perpetrator characteristics, treatment efficacy, and lay vs. legal opinions of abuse

Two studies examined interactions between victim age and victim response, and victim relation to perpetrator and victim response influencing perceptions of child sexual abuse (CSA). Undergraduates read one of several vignettes describing a sexual encounter between a man and a girl. In Experiment 1, age of the girl was varied; victim age interacted with victim response to increase ratings of abuse and expected trauma for the girl. In Experiment 2, age was held constant while victim relation to perpetrator was varied; men gave higher ratings of abuse than did women for scenarios involving a step father rather than a neighbor, regardless of victim response. In both studies, psychotherapy was expected to help the victim more than the perpetrator and the law was judged to be less stringent than it is regarding CSA. Results suggest that perceptions of CSA are influenced by several factors and that laws regarding CSA may not be well understood.     

Judicial Decision-Making and Juvenile Offenders: Effects of Medical Evidence and Victim Age

ABSTRACT

A growing body of evidence suggests that jurors place greater weight on DNA or other types of forensic evidence than non-forensic evidence (Cole & Dioso-Villa, 2009). For cases involving child sexual abuse, certain types of evidence, including forensic medical evidence, may be viewed as more important or indicative of abuse than other types of evidence, such as victim statements or disclosure. The present study evaluated perceptions of juvenile offenders and victim credibility across four vignettes that systematically manipulated variables related to victim age and physical indicators of abuse. A sample of 636 participants read vignettes and answered questions pertaining to the vignette. Participants also provided demographic information and responded to a series of items assessing participants’ judicial decision-making strategies and outcomes. Broadly, the presence of medical evidence significantly influenced participants’ decision-making across a variety of variables, including verdict outcome, verdict confidence, confidence that the victim was truthful, and determinations involving sex offender registration and notification requirements. The influence of medical evidence and victim age on perceptions and sentencing of juvenile sex offenders across these and additional outcome variables will be discussed.     

Who is the victim anyway? The effects of bystander victim impact statements on mock juror sentencing decisions

Victim impact evidence was varied in a brief trial scenario given to 120 participants eligible for jury service. The scenario concerned the murder trial of a disgruntled employee accused of bombing his former workplace. Participants read either no victim impact evidence or one of three victim impact statements. For the victim impact statements, we varied the identity of the witness. The victim impact statement was given by either the wife of the victim, a coworker of the victim, or a firefighter called to the crime scene. Results revealed that only the victim impact evidence given by the coworker lead to harsher sentencing judgments. However, participants rated the suffering of the victim's wife as most severe, indicating that perceptions of suffering may not predict sentencing judgments in a straightforward manner. Implications for these findings for legal decisions such as Payne v. Tennessee (1991) are discussed.     

Perceptions of domestic abuse in same-sex relationships and implications for criminal justice and mental health responses

Male and female university students (N = 171) read scenarios describing a domestic abuse incident that systematically varied the sex of victim and perpetrator to produce four between-participants conditions. Results were consistent with and extended previous findings about perceptions of heterosexual domestic abuse to include gay and lesbian domestic abuse. Findings suggest that participant perceptions of abuse in same-sex and heterosexual relationships are similar. Where they differ, the differences have significant implications: (a) participants considered male against female abuse to be more serious than same-sex domestic abuse, (b) participants were more likely to recommend that the victim press charges in male against female abuse than in same-sex domestic abuse, (c) participants perceived same-sex victims to be less believable than heterosexual victims, and (d) victim believability was correlated with sentencing recommendations. Implications for criminal justice and mental health intervention are considered. Directions for future research are outlined.     

Is the beautiful always so good? Influence of physical attractiveness on the social perception of sexual harassment / ¿Es lo bello siempre tan bueno? Influencia del atractivo físico en la percepción social del acoso sexual

Research has shown that the perception of sexual harassment depends on factors such as gender, the situational context, the type of harassment, the ideology of the perceiver, the physical attractiveness of the harasser and victim and the relationship between them. This study focuses on examining the influence of physical attractiveness in the perception of a situation like sexual harassment. Through a questionnaire, 205 participants read a scenario in which a male worker (attractive vs. unattractive) engaged in gender harassment against a female colleague (attractive vs. unattractive). The participants then answered the measurements on the perception of harassment, responsibility, motivation and ideology. The main results were that the situation was more often perceived as sexual harassment when the victim of the harassment was physically attractive than when she was unattractive. Furthermore, the higher the participants’ acceptance of harassment myths the more they tended to blame the victim. We can conclude from this study the importance of the influence of certain myths or preconceived ideas about sexual harassment, which are found in both men and women, on how these situations are perceived.     

Gender differences and socioeconomic status biases in judgments about blame in date rape scenarios

Participants (80 men, 80 women) read hypothetical date rape scenarios, wherein the perpetrator's socioeconomic status (bus driver versus doctor) and the victim's level of resistance (verbal versus verbal and physical) were varied, and made judgments about who was at fault and what the consequences should be. In general, men assigned more blame to the victim and less blame to the perpetrator than did women. However, men assigned more blame to the bus driver than to the doctor. Women, on the other hand, assigned more blame to the victim who was raped by the bus driver than to the victim who was raped by the doctor. The results also indicated that participants recommended harsher punishments for the perpetrator when the victim resisted verbally than when she resisted verbally and physically. Future research on the role of the perpetrator's, the victim's, and the participants' socioeconomic status in judgments about date rape is suggested.     

Attitudes Toward Juvenile Sex Offender Legislation: The Influence of Case-Specific Information

This study examined attitudes toward the application of adult sex offender legislation to juvenile sex offenders. Participants were randomly assigned to one of nine conditions. In the generic condition, the participants were asked to envision a generic juvenile sex offender, whereas in the manipulated conditions, participants read a vignette with three manipulated variables: offense type, victim age, and victim gender. Afterward, all participants (n = 978) completed questionnaires assessing perceptions of juvenile sex offenders and juvenile sex offender legislation. Overall, participants in the generic juvenile sex offender condition rated the perpetrator as more dangerous and more likely to reoffend than participants in the experimental conditions. Moreover, participants in the generic juvenile sex offender condition were more likely to endorse more punitive punishments and viewed perpetrators as “superpredators.” When examining differences between the experimental conditions, participants reading vignettes with younger victims and male victims as well as vignettes with contact offenses were more likely to view the perpetrator as dangerous, likely to recidivate, as a “superpredator,” and deserving of more punitive punishments. Implications for public policy as well as future research directions are discussed.     

Perceptions of elder physical abuse in the courtroom: the influence of hearsay witness testimony

A community sample of 226 participants (41% men, 59% women) who answered questions about a trial summary that manipulated what type of witness (a 45-year-old hearsay [second-hand information based on the report of a crime victim] witness, a 75-year-old hearsay witness, or the 75-year-old victim) presented an allegation of elder physical abuse. Overall, participants who read the testimony of a 45-year-old hearsay witness had higher conviction rates than participants who read the testimony of the 75-year-old hearsay witness or the elder victim. Additionally, participants who had previously been victims of abuse and/or who had positive attitudes toward elderly people rendered more pro-prosecution verdicts. Finally, as the age of the participant increased so did conviction rates.     

Bystander behavior and kinesics: The interaction between the helper and victim

One hundred eighty subjects participated in a factorial field experiment designed to study the effects of body orientation, eye contact, and sex upon helping behavior in a situation where a male victim fell. An eye-contact x x body-orientation interaction and a sex x body-orientation interaction were found. Eye contact raised the rate of help; and women helped more often than men, but only when the victim andS were approaching each other. A severe fall produced more help than did a mild fall. The cue value of the front side of a person, eye contact acting as a plea for help, and the salience of responsibility norms were discussed. The study was interpreted as indicating the necessity of accounting for the effects of the interaction between bystanders and victims.The research for this study was supported by a grant from the Central Fund for Research, College of Liberal Arts, The Pennsylvania State University.The authors would like to thank Joseph Primavera, III, for serving as their victim.     

Perceptions of Institutional Elder Neglect in Civil Court

Perception of institutional elder neglect (IEN) in civil court was investigated. Experiment 1 participants (N = 162) read an IEN trial summary in which alleged victim testimony was presented or not. Victim testimony increased the likelihood of ruling for the plaintiff, partially mediated by credibility of witnesses for each side. Experiment 2 (N = 68) included a condition with testimony from the victim's floor-mate. Likelihood of ruling for the victim: victim = floor-mate > no testimony, was mediated by perceived credibility of the plaintiff's case. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of alleged victim testimony in IEN cases.     

The communication of anger and disappointment helps to establish cooperation through indirect reciprocity

Indirect reciprocity is cooperation through reputation: third parties cooperate with those known to cooperate and defect against those known to defect. Defection, then, can have the unjust motive of greed or the just motive of retaliation. To establish cooperation, observers should distinguish both motives for defection and respond more cooperatively to the latter. We propose that the expression of emotions may facilitate this inferential process. Indeed, in two laboratory studies participants inferred that defection out of anger or disappointment was a just response to a defector and they responded more cooperatively than when no emotion was communicated. Moreover, participants inferred that defectors who evoked disappointment instead of anger had a relatively positive reputation. We conclude that emotions help establish cooperation through indirect reciprocity.     

Reactions to Participating in Intimate Partner Violence and Minority Stress Research: A Mixed Methodological Study of Self-Identified Lesbian and Gay Emerging Adults

The purpose of this study was to examine lesbian and gay (LG) young adults’ reactions to participating in intimate partner violence (IPV) and minority stress research using a mixed methodological design. Participants were 277 U.S. college students currently involved in same-sex relationships and self-identified cisgender LG who completed an online questionnaire that included closed- and open-ended questions. Results suggested that IPV research was well tolerated by the vast majority of participants; close to one in 10 participants reported being upset by the study questions, yet 75% of upset individuals reported some level of personal benefit. Reasons for upset as identified in the open-ended responses included thinking about personal experiences with IPV, as the perpetrator or friend of a victim, as well as thinking about the uncertainty of their future with their current partner. The correlates of emotional reactions and personal benefits to research participation were also examined, and these varied among gay men and lesbian women. Implications of these findings underscore the importance of accurate reflection of risk and benefits in informed consent documents as well as systematic evaluation of sexual minority participants’ reactions to research participation in an effort to conduct ethically sound sexual science research.     

Turning a Blind Eye? Punishment of Friends and Unfamiliar Peers After Observed Exclusion in Adolescence

In order to decrease the occurrence of social exclusion in adolescence, we need to better understand how adolescents perceive and behave toward peers involved in exclusion. We examined the role of friendships in treatment of perpetrators and victims of social exclusion. Eighty‐nine participants (aged 9–16) observed exclusion of an unfamiliar peer (victim) by their best friend and another unfamiliar peer. Subsequently, participants could give up valuable coins to altruistically punish or help peers. Results showed that participants altruistically compensated victims and punished unfamiliar excluders, but refrained from punishing their friends. Our findings show that friendship with excluders modulates altruistic punishment of peers and provide mechanistic insight into how friendships may influence treatment of peers involved in social exclusion during adolescence.     

Offended Parties and Official Reactions: Victims and the Sentencing of Criminal Defendants*

Theory and research in the field of deviance have generally neglected private parties who find the deviance of others personally offensive and problematic. This paper examines the victim's participation in the processing of criminal deviants. Using data from a sample of convicted felons, it explores the extent to which the behavior and attributes of the victim affect the sanction imposed on the defendant. The results indicate that victim characteristics affect sanctioning, but that these effects are largely indirect, being mediated by the recommendations probation officers submit to sentencing judges. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Perceptions of,and Assistance Provided to,a Hypothetical Rape Victim: Differences Between Rape Disclosure Recipients and Nonrecipients

Abstract

Objective: Undergraduate rape disclosure recipients’ and nonrecipients’ sociodemographic and life experience variables, attitudes towards rape, and responses to a hypothetical rape disclosure were compared to determine differences between them. Participants: One hundred ninety-two undergraduates at 3 universities participated in this online survey between November 2011 and April 2012. Methods: Participants reported on their rape myth acceptance (RMA) and personal direct and indirect (ie, disclosure receipt) experiences with sexual assault. Participants also responded to a hypothetical rape disclosure. Results: Disclosure recipients were more likely to report a victimization history, and less confusion and perceived ineffectiveness in helping the hypothetical victim. RMA and nonrecipient status predicted perceived victim responsibility; these variables and childhood victimization predicted confusion about helping. RMA also predicted perceived ineffectiveness of one's helping behaviors. Victimization history and female gender predicted victim empathy. Conclusions: These findings can inform sexual assault–related programming for undergraduates through the provision of targeted assistance and corrective information.     

Child Sexual Abuse Attributions Among Undergraduate Psychology Students in Singapore

ABSTRACT

Experimental vignettes were used to investigate attributions relating to child sexual abuse with a focus on the degree of blame allocated to the family and to society, factors thought to be particularly relevant in a collectivist society. One hundred and sixty-two undergraduates in Singapore evaluated media reports describing a case of child sexual abuse. A 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects design manipulated victim sex, perpetrator sex, and victim–perpetrator relationship. Participants rated the vignettes on degree of blame and prevention potential and rated the abusiveness of the case. Individualism and collectivism attitudes of the participants were also measured. While the highest blame ratings were attributed to perpetrators, significantly more blame was attributed to the family and to society than to the victim. The demonstration of the present attributions of blame to family and to society is a timely finding given recent recommendations to broaden approaches to child abuse prevention by moving away from a reliance on school based child protection programs, which leave the onus on the child to prevent and report abuse, toward a public health approach, which is particularly inclusive of parent and community education approaches . Allocation of some blame to victims, in spite of their status as children, while not a unique finding in victimology research, emphasizes the challenges still to be faced in encouraging the reporting of child sexual abuse.     

Preventing child sexual abuse (CSA) in ethnic minority communities: A literature review and suggestions for practice in Australia

A systematic literature review was conducted to address the immense national gap in knowledge on child sexual abuse (CSA) and ethnic minority communities in Australia, which necessarily borrowed from overseas. One theme explored within the review was that of prevention, and it was found that school-based programs are the most common type of prevention effort. The literature also calls for ‘culturally tailored’ programs to avoid homogenising victims' needs, however in Western multicultural countries like Australia there is a risk that such school-based programs heighten racism for ethnic minority children. Thus, program elements that are culturally sensitive could be incorporated into universal programs instead. Universal programs are also beneficial because they help reach many children regardless of their cultural background, help send the message that all children are equally valued and protected, help create unity and support among diverse victims, and can be further justified by three relatively stable cross-cultural findings: (i) that the prevalence of CSA is high worldwide, (ii) all children require protection irrespective of gender, and (iii) perpetrators are usually known to the victim. To help mobilise their role, service providers could co-deliver school-based programs especially to address institutional CSA within schools. They could also provide training to other health professionals to improve their identification of CSA and confidence to probe; a form of early intervention and therefore ‘secondary prevention’. Overall, this review argues that the importance of family reputation in collectivist cultures needs to be taken into account when designing and evaluating prevention programs so that delays in disclosure and help-seeking due to cultural pressure are not mistaken as evidence for their ineffectiveness. The findings are significant because they help progress the ‘prevention’ field in Australia where literature is essentially absent, particularly in the school and service system arenas.     

Undergraduate Students' Attributions of Depicted Adult–Adolescent and Adolescent–Adolescent Sexual Interactions

The grayest areas of defining child sexual abuse appear to involve the age and sex of the individuals involved, resulting in a potential for different attributions regarding child sexual abuse across individuals. As a result, this study examines the responses of 262 male and female college student participants after viewing a series of hypothetical sexual abuse vignettes that depicted a 15-year-old victim that neither resisted nor encouraged the advances of a 15-, 25-, or 35-year-old perpetrator's actions. Gender roles and sexual attitudes were examined as potentially important covariates. Using a series of analyses of covariance, female participants gave more pro-victim ratings than male participants, and younger perpetrators were viewed less negatively than older perpetrators. Gender roles and sexual attitudes served as significant covariates. These findings emphasized the need to educate individuals about child sexual abuse and unwanted sexual contact involving individuals under the age of consent.     

Culture of honour and the blaming of women in cases of rape / La cultura del honor y la inculpación de la mujer en casos de violación

The main objective of this research was to examine the influence of the culture of honour on victim blaming according to three types of rape scenarios involving the rape of a married woman (stranger rape vs. acquaintance rape vs. marital rape). A total of 262 university students (120 men and 142 women) participated in this study. Our results confirmed the influence of the culture of honour on the acquaintance rape scenario in the degree of victim blaming, followed by the marital rape scenario. In both scenarios the behaviour of the victim challenged the codes of the culture of honour. The results confirmed that the participants’ answers depended on the interaction of situational variables of a rape (type of scenarios) and the variables concerning the observer (the culture of honour).