Jacob Johnson
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Roseanna Sommers
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Law; Psychology / Law
Program: CG
Session: Session 5 (2:40pm – 3:30pm)
Authors: Jacob Johnson, Danna Long, Madhulika Shastry, Roseanna Sommers,
Abstract
After disclosure of a sexual assault, many individuals express sympathy and support for victims. Previous research suggests that victims of crime are generally seen as more moral than non-victims (Jordan & Kouchaki 2021); however, it is unclear whether this effect extends to victims of sexually-based crimes, especially when consent is involved. This study investigates how perception of consent influences an individual’s consideration of a victim’s morality following a sexual assault. Participants from the University of Michigan subject pool (n = 490) were randomly assigned to one of four vignettes where the victim is invited to the perpetrator’s bedroom and either: (1) no flirting nor sexual assault occurs, (2) no flirting occurs but assault occurs, (3) flirting occurs, sexual intercourse occurs, consent is revoked, and then intercourse ends, or (4) flirting occurs, sexual intercourse occurs, consent is revoked, but the intercourse continues. Participants were then asked to rate the morality, trustworthiness, and responsibility of the victim for the events that occurred. We hypothesized that participants would perceive the victim to be more moral in the conditions where the victim is sexually assaulted without flirting than in those where they do flirt. We found that adjacent consent (i.e. flirting, kissing, etc.) had a significant negative effect on perceived moral character and victimization (p = .001). The relevance of these findings might suggest that some people view flirting as a form of consent for sexual activity, which may in turn extend into legal systems where jurors may be more likely to issue a guilty verdict in cases where they perceive the victim to be moral or blameless for their assault.
