Citation

Capezza NM, Arriaga XB. Sex Roles 2008; 59(11-12): 839-850.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11199-008-9488-1

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Stereotyping research suggests that traditional women (e.g., housewives) are seen as warm and weak, whereas nontraditional women (e.g., career women) are seen as lacking warmth but competent. We expected a nontraditional female abuse victim to be perceived as less warm than a traditional victim, and thus be blamed more in an abuse scenario. In an experiment, 118 Midwestern United States college students read a marital conflict in which the husband perpetrated high levels of psychological abuse. The intimate partner violence victim’s gender role and reaction to the abuse each were manipulated. As expected, when the victim was nontraditional or she reacted negatively to the abuse (e.g., yelled back), she was rated more negatively and blamed more due to her lack of warmth.