Child provocativeness and gender as factors contributing to the blaming of victims of physical child abuse

This study was an investigation of factors contributing to blame attributions directed toward victims of physical child abuse. The total sample consisted of 897 college undergraduates. Subjects read eight vignettes describing physically abusive parent-child interactions, and indicated their attributions of responsibility toward parent and child. We predicted that: (a) aggressively provocative children (compared to nonprovocative) would be ascribed greater blame; (b) male subjects would be more likely to blame the child; (c) in situations in which the abusive parent is male (compared to female), the child would be blamed more; and (d) male children (compared to females) would receive greater blame. The results supported all hypotheses. The data also suggested several interaction effects. Significance tests were supplemented with effect size analyses.