Department of Psychology, University of Roehampton, Roehampton, London
Interdisciplinary Social Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno.
Violence Vict. 2021 Dec 1;36(6):808-822. doi: 10.1891/VV-D-20-00029.
Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) may be met with skeptical responses when they disclose their experience. The fear of such a response means that most victims delay telling anyone about the abuse. The aim of this study was to explore how contextual factors of abuse such as victim gender and age, perpetrator gender, and victim-perpetrator relationship affect a response to CSA. Further, we explored what personality traits may predict a skeptical response. An online questionnaire with 357 undergraduate students asked participants to read a vignette describing CSA, and to indicate the extent to which they believed the vignette, whether they blamed the victim or perpetrator, and what punishment they would recommend for the perpetrator. Results indicated that older victims were less likely to be believed and more likely to be blamed than younger victims. Further, we found more blame was placed on a perpetrator of intrafamilial abuse compared with extrafamilial abuse, but only if the perpetrator was male. Female perpetrators were punished less harshly than male perpetrators, but female intrafamilal perpetrators received harsher punishment than female extrafamilial perpetrators. No such effect was found for male perpetrators. Openness to Experience was associated with a more supportive response to CSA, as was Agreeableness. Implications and future directions are discussed.
童年期性虐待（CSA）的受害者在披露自己的经历时可能会遭到怀疑。这种担心会导致大多数受害者延迟向任何人讲述虐待经历。本研究旨在探讨虐待的情境因素（如受害者的性别和年龄、施害者的性别以及受害者与施害者的关系）如何影响对 CSA 的反应。此外，我们还探讨了哪些人格特质可能预示着怀疑的反应。一份有 357 名本科生参与的在线问卷要求参与者阅读一段描述 CSA 的情景描述，并表明他们对该情景描述的相信程度、他们是否责备受害者或施害者，以及他们会建议对施害者进行何种惩罚。结果表明，年长的受害者比年幼的受害者更不容易被相信，更有可能受到责备。此外，我们发现与家庭外的施害者相比，家庭内的施害者会受到更多的责备，但前提是施害者是男性。女性施害者比男性施害者受到的惩罚要轻，但女性家庭内的施害者受到的惩罚比女性家庭外的施害者更严厉。对于男性施害者，没有发现这种效应。开放性和宜人性与对 CSA 的更支持性反应相关。讨论了其影响和未来方向。
