Victim blaming occurs when victims of a crime are held either partly or wholly responsible for the crimes committed against them. This concept is frequently invoked in critiques of the rape culture, which permeates many layers of our society. While most of us like to believe that we would never engage in victim blaming, research from social psychology tells us that it is a rather common tendency that stems from basic human motives.
According to social psychology, human behavior is driven by two motives: the need to be accurate and the need to feel good about ourselves. The latter prompts us to engage in victim blaming.
Tragic events, like incidents of sexual assault, may threaten our self-esteem because they remind us that if something bad could happen to someone else, it could also happen to us. To protect ourselves from this anxiety-provoking consideration, we often take comfort in what’s referred to as the “belief in a just world hypothesis,” which assumes that people deserve what they get and get what they deserve – bad things only happen to bad people.
By believing in this hypothesis, we avoid recognizing the reality of the world: unfortunately, sexual assault can realistically happen to anyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, etc. The characteristics or actions of the victim are irrelevant; nothing he or she said or did warranted being assaulted. Yet the just-world hypothesis causes us to attribute the cause of the incident to the victim – it must have been what they were wearing, they were asking for it, they were acting promiscuously, etc. Instead of trying to identify ways that someone could have contributed to his or her fate, we should be seeking proactive measures that transform the culture that allows sexual assault to occur.
Armed with this knowledge about the natural human tendency to defend threats to our safety, it is important for us to recognize when we are partaking in victim blaming. We must take steps to challenge any initial, knee-jerk response we have to blame a victim, even if that response subconsciously makes us feel safer and better about ourselves.