Sociocultural variables in blame attributions at rape victim

This work analyzes blame attributions at rape's victims in a college students sample. The study was drawed in order to know why people blame more some victims than others. The sample was: 863 students, male and female, of second course of Law, Medicine and Psychology of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain. Through two studies, the subjects read 9 stories about different cases of rape and were asked to express their beliefs about the victim's guilt. Gender and studies differences were related to a «traditional» or «liberal» ideology. The results suggest that manipulated sociocultural variables (like victims respectability, or victim's resistance to the rape), were relevants in the guilty attributions process, and this patterns were consistents with social myths or stereotypes about rape.