They Had It Coming: The Relationship Between Perpetrator-Blame and Victim-Blame

Abstract

Though the study of blame is far from new, little to no research has systematically investigated how perpetrator-blame and victim-blame influence one another. The current series of studies used correlational (Study 1), experimental (Studies 2 and 3), and mediational (Studies 3A and 3B) designs to address this issue. Results indicated that when it comes to perpetrators and victims, blame is zero-sum. Across a diverse set of crimes of varying severity, the more that a victim is seen as playing a causal role in a crime, the less blame is assigned to the perpetrator. In addition, when victim-culpability is experimentally manipulated, having a more causally responsible victim actually mitigates blame for the perpetrator, and this discounting of perpetrator-blame occurs because the victim is seen as more deserving of what happened. Results are discussed in terms of real-world implications.