NCJ Number
168305
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 21 Issue: 9 Dated: (September 1997) Pages: 833-844
Date Published
1997
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study examined how the gender of the child and the adult as well as the child's age influenced college undergraduates' perceptions of the abusiveness of adult-child sexual interactions and attributions of blame and responsibility to the adult in such offenses.
Abstract
A total of 404 undergraduate students read one of eight vignettes that depicted a sexual interaction between a child and an adult in which the sex of the child, age of the child, and sex of the adult were manipulated. Respondents then answered questions regarding their perceptions of the abusiveness of the incident and attributions of responsibility and blame to the adult. The scenarios that depicted a 15-year-old were rated as less abusive, and less responsibility was attributed to the adult relative to vignettes that involved a 7-year-old. Respondents also rated scenarios that depicted opposite-sex interactions as less abusive compared to scenarios that described same-sex interactions. When vignettes depicted a 15-year-old, less blame was attributed to the adult compared to vignettes that depicted a 7-year-old with an adult of either sex, with the least amount of blame being attributed to the adult involved with an adolescent of the opposite sex. Gender-role attitudes were not significantly related to ratings of abusiveness or attributions of responsibility and blame. These findings suggest that age of the child may influence ratings of abusiveness and attributions of responsibility and blame. Ratings of abusiveness and attributions of blame also are apparently influenced by the gender pairing in the interaction. 1 table and 26 references