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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether indicating victims of sexual attacks actively resisted their attacker or froze during their assault affected perceptions of victim blame, perpetrator blame and seriousness of the crime. We also tested whether victim and perpetrator gender or participants’ rape myth endorsement moderated the outcomes.

This study was a cross-sectional, vignette survey study with a 2 × 2 between-participants experimental design. Participants read a mock police report describing an alleged rape with a female or male victim who either resisted or froze, while perpetrator gender was adjusted heteronormatively.

Freezing and male victims were blamed more than resisting and female victims. Perpetrators were blamed more when the victim resisted, but male and female perpetrators were blamed equally. Seriousness of the crime was higher for male perpetrators and when the victim resisted. Female, but not male, rape myth acceptance moderated the relationship between victim behaviour and outcome variables.

This study highlights the influence of expectations about victim behaviour on perceptions of rape victims and the pervasive influence of rape myths when evaluating female rape victims. The data is drawn from the German border region of the Netherlands, which is an especially valuable population given the evolving legal definitions of rape in both countries.

Victims of online fraud face a high level of blame from their families, friends, professionals, the broader community and often from themselves. Victims are commonly perceived as stupid, gullible and undeserving of justice. The reasons for this are under-researched, and there are currently no satisfactory explanations of why victim-blaming occurs so frequently in cases of online fraud. This paper aims to propose a potential theoretical explanation for the high level of blame experienced by online fraud victims.

Lerner’s Belief in a Just World (BJW) theory is posited as a helpful theoretical explanation for the high level of blame directed towards victims of online fraud.

This paper argues that Lerner’s BJW theory is a helpful framework for understanding the blame faced by victims of online fraud because it posits that behavioural responsibility (a trait commonly ascribed to online fraud victims) is central to perceived blameworthiness; and that compensation for a crime determines the level of blame directed towards victims. As victims of online fraud are exceptionally unlikely to receive any type of compensation (whether monetary or otherwise), BJW may help explain the blame directed towards victims.

Prior scholarship predominantly understands the blame faced by online fraud victims through the lens of Nils Christie’s (1986) “ideal victim” thesis. This paper presents an advance over this existing understanding by illustrating how BJW provides a more detailed explanation for victim blame in online fraud.

The authors aim to explore how perspective-taking and attribution of blame lead to side-taking by human resource professionals (HRPs) when making judgements and handling complaints of sexual harassment.

Employing qualitative methodology, the authors used semi-structured in-depth interviews with 35 HRPs from 30 companies in Sri Lanka. Attribution theory and perspective-taking were used as theoretical lenses.

In handling complaints of sexual harassment incidents, HRPs take the perspectives of the alleged perpetrator, complainant, or the company and attribute the blame to the alleged perpetrator or the complainant. Irrespective of the gender of the HRPs and the perspective they take, they would most often blame the female complainants due to sexual harassment myths and misperceptions and traditional sex-role beliefs. Thus, they either take the side of the alleged perpetrator or the company, explicitly/implicitly or intentionally/unintentionally.

The central originality of this research is the finding that HRPs take sides in resolving complaints of sexual harassment and perspective-taking and attribution of blame by HRPs lead to this side-taking in organisational settings.

This study expands the empirical understanding of financial fraud victims and the consequences that emerge as a result of financial fraud victimization. In addition, this study aims to assess the impact of the unique role victims play in financial fraud and the impact self-identifying as a victim has on the negative consequences they experience.

Data from the Supplemental Fraud Survey to the National Crime Victimization Survey are used to assess the negative consequences of financial fraud victimization.

Results suggest that victims of financial fraud experience increased distress and financial complications following their victimization experience. In addition, self-reported victim status is found to significantly increase a respondent’s likelihood of reporting emotional distress and financial complications. Implications for research, theory and policy are discussed.

While empirical studies on the consequences of identity theft victimization have been increasing in recent years, financial fraud victimization remains understudied. Given the victim involvement in financial fraud, the consideration of financial fraud independent of identity theft fraud is vital.

This study aims to examine whether country of residence, sex trafficking attitudes, complainant gender, juror gender and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) influenced juror decision-making within a sex trafficking case.

Jury-eligible participants from the USA and the UK participated in an online juror experiment in which an independent group design was used to manipulate the complainant’s gender. Participants completed the juror decision scale, the sex trafficking attitudes scale and the RWA scale.

Sex trafficking attitudes predicted the believability of both the defendant and complainant. Greater negative beliefs about victims predicted greater defendant believability and lower complainant believability. US jurors reported greater believability of both the complainant and defendant, and RWA was associated with greater defendant believability. However, none of the other factors, including complainant and juror gender, predicted participants’ verdicts. The findings suggest juror verdicts in sex trafficking cases may be less influenced by extra-legal factors, although further research is needed, especially with a more ambiguous case.

This is one of the few cross-cultural comparison studies in the area of jury decision-making, specifically regarding sex trafficking cases. The findings indicated that US participants held more problematic attitudes about sex trafficking than their UK counterparts, although all participants held problematic attitudes about sex trafficking. However, those attitudes did not affect verdict formation about either a male or female complainant. Participants who were more knowledgeable about sex trafficking reported greater complainant believability, suggesting that educational interventions may provide greater support for victims in court.