The Role of Political Ideology in Mediating Judgments of Blame in Rape Victims and their Assailants: A Test of the Just World, Personal Responsibility, and Legitimization Hypotheses

Previous research often has shown that conservative ideology is positively correlated with the extent to which people blame victims of rape. However, much of this work has been descriptive, with little attention directed toward the development of theoretical models addressing why conservatism might play an important role in this area. Three hypotheses were tested. The just world hypothesis suggests that people blame others to preserve one’s view that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The personal responsibility hypothesis suggests that conservatism is associated with a tendency to hold people personally responsible for their own actions. The legitimization hypothesis stipulates that conservative perceivers are motivated to maintain traditional power differences between dominant and nondominant groups. Two studies showed much more support for the legitimization hypothesis compared to the other hypotheses. The implications of the present results for previous investigations of victim blaming are discussed.