Theories Of Victim Blaming

Understanding human behavior is an incredibly complex task. A reasonable person should be able to understand that there are a vast array of reasons a person would act they way they do. However, people are incredibly quick to judge on limited information. These judgements stick and are hard to dismantle, even when contrary evidence is made clear. Attribution theory was developed to understand the cognitive processes involved in making these judgements about how other people behave. Attributions happen in mundane, everyday situations, but an extremely prevalent and harmful way these judgements occur happens through blaming sexual assault victims for their circumstances. The reasons surrounding victim blaming might seem obvious, but attribution
theory places a holistic focus on humans and the behaviors they exhibit. When it comes to people who blame victims, the easy way out is to ascribe internal attributions that hold the person solely accountable for their thoughts and behavior, but as attribution theory states there are a number of less obvious, less personally reflective reasons for why a person would hold victims accountable for their own misfortune.
Victim blaming occurs when someone who suffers any misfortune is held unfairly responsible for their situation.
Though victims of illness, poverty, natural disaster, and a myriad of other events are blamed for their circumstances, one of the most notable and widely discussed instances is the blaming of female sexual assault victims. Though blaming victims of sexual assault is often seen as coming from a place of misogynistic prejudice towards women, there is a wide belief that victim blaming works as a means of distancing oneself from the possibility of experiencing something similar (Harber 603) and aims to reconfigure threatening emotions as they come up (604). Studies surrounding victim blaming find that perception of the victim’s personal characteristics play just as significant a role in the blaming process as the perceiver’s own personal characteristics (Ferrão 48). The harms of victim blaming are significant. It not only takes blame away from people who are sexual assault perpetrators, but has several negative effects on victims such as self-silencing, distrust, and an increase in anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (Harber 603). Victim blaming is an incredibly common problem, and it has been found that, depending on the demographic, about 25% people hold that drunk victims are partially to blame, while about 40% believe that a flirtatious victim is somewhat, if not mostly, at fault (Barrett). Because of this, there is no doubt that victim blaming
is a vast problem that requires critical attention and discussion.
Attribution theory was developed by Fritz Heider in an attempt understand how people perceive individual’s behaviors, including their own. It was observed that people often question their own behavior and the behavior of others and try to come up with an explanation (Foss 84). Heider explained that there are a handful of attributions a person can make, including situational causes, personal effects, ability, effort, desire, sentiment, belonging, obligation, and permission (84). Though they vary between outside influence and personal choice, one of these attributions will come into play. Interestingly, even though internal state and external situation are the two routes a person can do in judging behavior (84) the cognitive processes that go into making judgements can be incredibly varied and are overwhelmingly dependent on the individual’s perception of behavior rather than the actual behavior itself.
Attribution theory makes it clear that judging people is a completely normal and inevitable part of life. People are incredibly overloaded with sensory data and make sense of it by making judgements to explain behavior they do not understand (Griffin 137). Judgement often has a negative connotation, however judgements can often serve as a means of self-preservation. Judgement making works as a way of knowing what to expect in the future, which would lead to having an understanding of who or what may potentially attempt to do harm to another individual (138). Attribution has three steps: perception of action, judgement of intention, and attribution of disposition (138). A person uses these three factors to determine how to attribute behavior. For example, if a person rear-ends someone else, witnesses will follow these steps to determine why it happened. If the event was not witnessed, no judgement can be made. However, if it was witnessed, the next step is deciding if it was intended. If the action was unintended, it is simply seen as an accident. If not, the witness asks if the action was coerced, or caused by an unavoidable outside force, and if it was the action is no longer attributed to the person. If the action was not coerced, the witness will attribute the action to the driver’s personal qualities. These judgements often happen very quickly, with a very small amount information and these initial judgements are hard to overcome. Even if additional, contrary evidence is provided, people tend to hold fast to their original judgements (Foss 85).
Determining intention is one of the most crucial aspects of attribution theory. There are five different common biases people hold when judging intention. Firstly, people are more likely to hold others accountable for negative outcomes than positive results. Secondly, it is common to be more judgemental against someone who lacks effort, but are easier on people who lack ability. Thirdly, people who try to improve their situation are more heavily judged than those avoiding loss. Fourthly, it is more likely someone will hold others more accountable for their circumstances when we fear a similar outcome. And finally, overall people tend to hold others more responsible for their outcomes than they hold themselves (Griffin 141). These judgements play very heavily into how people attribute another person’s behavior. It is completely normal for people to assume that person who behaves a certain is that way. However, the problem with this comes when people discredit outside influences that might be playing into why certain actions are taken. If outside influences are considered and it is determined that the person did not have a choice in whether or not they performed a certain action, the action is not attributed to long term personal qualities (142). Again, in everyday situations these judgements take very little time to develop, and the attributions people make tend to fair unfavorably for others. Although this it seems natural for a person to explain behavior in this way, it is an improper and illogical way to understand human behavior. Although people do have a tendency to think illogically, attribution theory still operates under the assumption that people can think logically and systematically. However, outside circumstances and individual motivation play a significant role in whether or not a person’s reasoning is logical or illogical (85).
The distinct benefit people give themselves has been so heavily observed within attribution theory that it was given the name fundamental attribution error. Fundamental attribution error states that people have a tendency to attribute the cause of events to an individual’s personal qualities (Foss 85). In other words, people are solely responsible for what happens to them. The error in this is that people typically do not hold themselves as accountable as others. If a person is late to work, it is likely that their boss and co-workers will assume that their choices, as well as who they are personally, are what made them late. They might be perceived as being lazy, having poor time management, and lacking proper dedication to their job. However, if that person’s boss or co-workers were late, they would most likely put the blame on outside factors, such as traffic, a flat tire, or no parking. It has been observed that people are more likely to take into consideration circumstantial factors when analyzing their own behavior but hold others personally accountable for theirs (85). Although there is certainly room to use simple cause and effect analysis, outside factors often play a significant role in how a person behaves, and outside influence cannot be completely omitted when observing and judging others’ behavior.
One of the most obvious problems with victim blaming that attribution theory can address is the inappropriate focus on attributing the victim’s actions over the perpetrator’s. When a person is sexually assaulted, it is incredibly important to get a good understanding of what happened. Part of this process includes figuring out why it happened in the first place. Unfortunately, instead of most people trying to figure out why the perpetrator chose to commit a crime, the questioning is often placed on the victim and what she did to encourage the behavior. When this happens, attributions are placed on the wrong person. It is overwhelmingly perceived that victims allow or encourage the perpetrator to attack them and it is seen as necessary to pick apart every action she did or did not take to determine whether or not she consented. Everything from how a woman dressed to how she looked or spoke to someone comes into play at a potential reason for why she was attacked. It is often assumed that women ask to be attacked by exhibiting these behaviors, even though the fault of any other crime against a person, such as a robbery or murder, is rarely, if ever, attributed to the victim’s personal qualities or choices. Though attribution theory can certainly be applied in this situation, but it is much more effective to find attributions for the outsider’s behaviors than try to pinpoint the source of the victim’s actions. A common attribution people make towards victims combines situational causes and personal choice. Although people do not usually say that women do not have a right to choose how they dress, where they go, and who they associate with, many people believe that those choices influence how others will interact with them. This is certainly true - self presentation has a large influence on how others perceive - but the problem comes when people accuse victims for their assault because of these choices. Assault is seen as an action victims bring on themselves by the choices they make, or even who they are as a person. Common reasoning is that if a woman shows a certain amount of skin men will have no control over their sexual desires and their subsequent actions. This reasoning is incredibly illogical, and takes all personal responsibility off male perpetrators. As stated before, choice is an essential factor in how people develop attributions. If a person believes that a man’s sex drive is an uncontrollable thing, then of course he is not to be blamed if he forces himself on another person. In the same way, a woman who chooses to dress scantily takes on all possible consequences that come with that choice. In this case, female victims are personally responsible for their fate while male perpetrators are seen as victims of uncontrollable, outside forces. The prevalence of this thought processes re-enforces itself every time a woman is blamed for her assault and only furthers the cycle of victim blaming.
Attribution theory gives a lot of insight to a person’s own internal response to external events. How a person experiences the world has just about everything to do with how they attribute other people’s behaviors. Another way the theory can be applied to victim blaming is the idea of self-preservation. One of the common biases in judging is holding someone more accountable for something that happens to them when the person perceiving the event has a fear of the same thing happening to them. Convincing oneself that specific chosen actions lead to specific inevitable outcomes makes the world seem much more predictable than it really is. This particular aspect is most effective when considering people who identify with the victim in some way. The easiest distinction to make is gender. When a woman blames another woman for being attacked, it is not unreasonable to assume that her own fear is coming out through the attributions she makes. If they can distance themselves from any activity the victim was participating in, such as drinking or being out after dark, there is reason to believe the same is less likely to happen to them. Although the reasoning absolutely makes sense, it is in illogical thought process that does not actually result in an increase of personal safety. As stated previously, fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute the cause of events to a person’s personal qualities. It concludes that people are solely responsible for what happens to them. When a victim of any kind is held responsible for the wrongdoing done to them, it only perpetuates this error, and it even leads to victims believing that there was something they could have or should have done to prevent what happened to them. Although attribution theory states that people are more lenient with themselves than others, victims of sexual assault often have a difficult time not holding themselves personally responsible for what happened. Because of this, victim blaming seems to be cyclical. If the larger population believes that victims are in control of their fate, victims will likely adopt those same beliefs and potentially project them into other victims. Not allowing people to truly be victims when they have been victimized not only discredits the pain of their experience, but encourages them to feel less sympathetic towards other victims. Fortunately the conversation surrounding victim blaming has gained enough momentum for many victims to understand that they are not at fault for their victimization, despite what people around them may be attributing it to. Attribution theory is an incredibly interesting field because the focus lies on perception rather than actual action.
In attempting to understand how people come to conclusions about why people behave a certain way, more seems to be discovered about the person perceiving than the person acting. When it comes to victim blaming, it is easy to assume that the blamers are unsympathetic and misogynistic, but attribution theory states that ascribing internal, personal blame for every action is too limited in its analysis of human behavior. There are always a myriad of internal and external forces that influence a person’s behavior. Although they do not necessarily validate those behaviors, understanding driving forces behind undesirable attitudes is the first step in dismantling them. Attribution theory shows that people are stubborn, often fearful, and do not like feeling out of control of their circumstances. In understanding this, the conversation surrounding the causes and potential solutions to victim blaming can be much more candid and beneficial for all those
involved.