The importance of a victim’s age-inappropriate behaviour on public perceptions of adolescent sexual assault. Further Investigation of the victim pseudomaturity effect

This study examined the roles of victim age, victim age-inappropriate behaviour and respondent gender on perceptions of a hypothetical adolescent sexual abuse case. Two hundred and twenty-six members of the UK public read a vignette that depicted a 13 or 15 year old girl sexually assaulted whilst attending either a school or university party, and thus behaving either appropriately or inappropriately old for her chronological age. No main victim age effects - other than to confirm the age-inappropriateness of victim behaviour - were found. However, women did view the depicted assault to be more severe than did men. Furthermore, women deemed the 15 year old victim more culpable for her own assault than they did her younger, 13 year old, equivalent. For the most part, differences across victim behaviour effects were as expected. By attending a University (verses school) party, the 13 year old was deemed have behaved inappropriately old and thus more culpable for her own sexual assault than the 15 year old acting the same way. Finally, non-offending others (i.e., the victim’s family, best friend and other party-goers) were also deemed more culpable for the girls’ assault when she behaved in an inappropriately old (vs. age-appropriate) manner. Findings are discussed in relation to existing theories of victim blame and support the notion of a “victim pseudomaturity effect”. Methodological issues, ideas for future work and policy implications are also considered