Does Perceived Injury Explain the Effects of Gender on Attributions of Blame for Intimate Partner Violence? A Factorial
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Does Perceived Injury Explain the Effects of Gender on Attributions of Blame for Intimate Partner Violence? A Factorial Vignette Analysis Maggie M. Parker 1
&
Richard E. Mattson 1 & Erin F. Alexander 1 & Allison M. McKinnon 1
Accepted: 18 November 2020 # The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Perpetrator and victim gender influence how blame is assigned in intimate partner violence (IPV) scenarios. Although men’s differential capacity to inflict and sustain harm is posited as the reason male perpetrators and victims receive more blame for IPV, it is possible that other aspects of the construct of gender, such as gender role beliefs, underscore these effects. Using a sample of 323 college students and a factorial vignette design that varied body sizes and genders of victims and perpetrators, we examined the extent to which perceptions of physical injury accounted for the effects of perpetrator and victim gender on blame attributions, and whether adherence to traditional gender roles moderated any influences of gender unassociated with perceived injury. For female perpetrators, participants estimated lower levels of perceived injury and greater victim blame, with the former effect predominantly accounting for the latter. Male victims were viewed as less injured and more blameworthy, but the latter finding was not predominantly driven by injury perceptions. Perceived physical injury also did not account for why females perpetrating against males were blamed least. Controlling for differences in perceived injury, those holding more traditional gender views blamed victims of female violence more than victims of male-perpetrated violence. Notably, variations in body physical size were not associated with injury perceptions or blame attributions. These findings overall suggest that gender does influence blame attributions by way of perceived physical injury, but other aspects of the construct of gender are also relevant to these evaluations. Keywords Intimate partner violence . Blame attributions . Injury . Physical violence . Gender roles
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive societal and public health issue that impacts more than ten million women and men annually (Black et al. 2011). Those impacted have an increased risk for suicidality (Chan et al. 2008) and mental health disorders (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder; Dutton et al. 2006). Moreover, IPV’s costs to the United States economy have been estimated at more than eight billion dollars a year (Rothman et al. 2007), with the majority of this financial burden coming from medical fees and lost work productivity.
Portions of these findings were presented as a poster at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies in Washington, D.C., USA. * Maggie M. Parker [email protected] 1
Psychology Department, Binghamton University, PO Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, USA
A known determinant of IPV is attitudinal acce
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