PARENT AS BOTH PERPETRATOR AND VICTIM: BLAME AND PUNISHMENT IN A CASE OF CHILD NEGLECT

Attributions of responsibility typically increase as outcome severity increases. In defensive attributions, similar others are assigned less responsibility in more severe instances. The current study utilized a child neglect paradigm to explore defensive attributions when the actor may be perceived as both perpetrator and victim. Participants read a newspaper article in which a parent left a child unattended in a hot car, with details based on participants' random assignment to one of four experimental conditions (outcome severity: mild vs severe; actor gender: male vs female). Results failed to support the defensive attribution hypothesis for attributions of controllability, responsibility, and blame. However, group differences based on actor-observer similarity of gender and parenting status were found for empathy, and empathy predicted social punishment.