The role of just-world beliefs, victim identifiability, and the salience of an alternative target for victim blaming

Abstract

Victim blaming—the tendency to attribute responsibility and blame to innocent victims—is associated with people's belief that the world is a just place where everybody gets what they deserve and deserves what they get. In the present research, we examine the extent to which the relationship between just-world beliefs and victim blaming depends on (a) whether or not the victim is identifiable and (b) whether or not another involved person is salient (e.g., an offender). Results from a pre-registered pilot experiment (Study 1; N = 363) suggest that, in the absence of a salient offender, identifying information about the victim (vs. no information) increased the relationship between just-world beliefs and victim blaming. In contrast, when there was a salient offender, identifying information about the victim (vs. no information) decreased this relationship. We attempted to replicate these findings in a pre-registered experiment (Study 2; N = 1143), implementing several changes to the design to address some limitations of Study 1. Here, we only found main effects of just-world beliefs and the salience of a second person, but none of the hypothesized interaction effects. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.