In order to analyse the psychological research surrounding victim blame and intimate partner violence (IPV), this report focus on Feminist and Family Violence perspectives and their links to Attribution Theory due to these being the most relevant within this field.
Victim blame is defined as the phenomenon whereby a victim of crime is deemed at least partly responsible by others within society (Grubb & Turner, 2012). Which throughout this report, will be discussed in relation to instances of intimate partner violence (IPV), which according to the official government definition, is; “any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse [psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional] between adults who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender or sexuality” (Home Office, 2012). Although this definition encompasses all types of abuse; across gender, sexuality and nature, as physical violence is not always present in IPV (Dixon & Bowen, 2012); the term ‘domestic’ suggests that the offences occur within the home, which is not always the case (Groves & Thomas, 2014). Defensive Attribution Hypothesis The Phenomena of victim blame could be explained by Walster’s (1966) Defensive Attribution Hypothesis, which research shows a wide range of personal, psychological or situational factors and beliefs, such as similarity between the victim and observer can influence the attribution of blame (Shaver, 1970). This research also found that observers with a large gap in age to the victim are more likely to place blame on them, despite them having done nothing to constitute this and that how likely an observer thought they could be in a situation similar themselves, influenced their attribution of blame. These findings support research showing that people believe in a ‘just world’ and that this belief that good things happen to good people, whilst bad people get what is coming to them helps to bring order to the observers own environment (Lerner & Simmons, 1966; Lerner & Miller, 1978). …show more content…
In an expansion of this research Klenke & Meyer (1990) who cite their use of Rubin & Peplau’s 1975 Belief in a Just World (BJW) Scale alongside mock interviews with alleged rape victims to analyse what type of people are most likely to attribute blame onto innocent victims. The outcome showed that women who scored highly on the BJW scale blamed victims less than women with low scores, whereas men who scored highly saw the victim more negatively. This could be due to the women being more able to identify with the female victim, alongside the consideration that they could be in that situation; a finding which offers further support for Shaver’s (1970) research. It must be considered that this research was done in a clinical setting, therefore reducing its external validity, as these results may be different within a real life situation. The mock interview was also shown to participants within groups, which is likely to influence their responses to align with other group members. There is evidence that men who believe that a woman’s role should align with ‘traditional’ gender roles are most likely to victim blame from an observational point of view or as a perpetrator; justify his actions (Thornton, Ryckman & Robbins, 1982; Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995). However the latter research suggest misogyny within the measurement scales used within their research, therefore to gain a more accurate representation, a more updated, gender neutral scale should be applied. Feminist Perspectives Feminist theorists have a propensity to conceptualise IPV as a crime against women, committed by men as a way of asserting dominance within a relationship as a product of a patriarchal society (Walker, 1989; Dobash et al., 1992). This is evidenced by how victims of IPV are treat; regularly being met with responses ranging from “why didn’t you just leave?” to “you must have pushed his buttons” upon disclosing abuse (Home Office, 2015). This reaction is highly damaging as it not only removes responsibility from known offenders, but could lead to victims being wary of coming forward; a situation rife in society already (Hoyle and Sanders, …show more content…
However, this research fails to take into account female-male IPV whilst the reductionist nature classes all men as capable of abusing their partners (Dutton & Nicholls,