This study asks how members of the US public understand rape and whether they think particular incidents deserve reporting or severe punishment. The authors offer an empirical conceptualization of "rape culture" and use experimental tools to test how incident attributes shape public judgments about punishability. Their contribution is to show, within a qualified experimental design, that features related to victims' consent and credibility matter for whether people support reporting to police or recommending severe sanctions.
conjoint experiments public opinion rape and crime perceptions
Data and methods
The paper reports a series of conjoint experiments and related survey-experimental designs to test how varying attributes of hypothetical rape incidents affect respondent judgments. The abstract identifies the use of conjoint-style manipulations to present alternate incident features to participants and measure support for reporting to police and for severe punishment.
Main findings
According to the abstract, attributes tied to the victim's consent and credibility substantially reduce participants' propensity to support reporting the incident to police or to recommend severe punishment for the perpetrator. The authors emphasize that highlighting legally irrelevant features can strongly influence whether the public views an incident as severe or punishable.
- Details about consent and victim credibility most strongly reduce support for reporting and punishment.
- Emphasizing legally irrelevant incident features can change perceived severity and punishability.
