Citation

Murdoch A, Gonsalkorale K. Psychiatry Psychol. Law. 2017; 24(6): 853-865.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13218719.2017.1315787

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Three studies were conducted to examine the role of order effects in attributions of blame in cases of acquaintance rape. Participants were presented with a vignette describing an acquaintance rape and were then asked to respond to a victim blame scale and a perpetrator blame scale, the presentation order of which was manipulated. The results of Study 1 (n = 129) indicated that the participants who first responded to the perpetrator blame scale blamed the perpetrator less than the participants who first responded to the victim blame scale. This effect was replicated in Study 2 (n = 120) and Study 3 (n = 70), which was run 18 months after Study 2 and used a modified vignette. These findings suggest that order effects should be a methodological consideration in future studies on blame attribution.

Language: en

Keywords

acquaintance rape; blame attribution; context effect; order effect