Victim-Defendant Relationship and Juror Attitudes Towards Rape as Mediators of Attribution of Responsibility for Rape

The present study attempted to examine the effect of specific information about the prior relationship between victim and defendant on subjects' attributive behavior in a case of rape, as well as the relative power of subjects' general attitudes towards rape in predicting their decisions in ambiguous vs. more clear-cut cases. Seventy-two (72) male and seventy-two (72) female undergraduate subjects read one of three written accounts of a rape case in which the sexual component of the prior victim-defendant relationship was varied. They were then asked for their judgements about the responsibility of both the victim and defendant for the rape, as well as conviction and sentencing of the defendant. In addition, a questionnaire designed to elicit subjects attitudes towards rape in general was administered. The hypothesis that increased sexual content of the victim-defendant relationship would he associated with increased attributions of victim responsibility was largely supported, though the effect was limited. The hypothesis that subjects' general attitudes towards rape would become more powerful predictors of their decisions as case ambiguity increased was not supported, although subjects' rape attitudes had a stronger overall effect on their attributive behavior than any other independent variable.