scholarly journals Acceptance in Blame: How and why we Blame the Victims of Street Harassment

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
Hanaa El Moghrabi
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Bystander Effect ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
Street Harassment ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Sexually Explicit ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
World Hypothesis

Globally, and on a daily basis, women are subjected to unwanted verbal and/or physical intrusions such as catcalling, leering, honking, sexually explicit or sexist comments, touching or grabbing, amongst other actions that are all considered street harassment. This paper is a review of some of the literature available, which focuses on the psychological and feminist aspects of street harassment and victim blaming through social, cognitive, intersectional, and economic lenses. Regarding psychological theories, I will examine reasons why victim blaming happens through the theories of the just-world hypothesis, cognitive dissonance, and the bystander effect. The feminist theories touch on the basics of objectification and power dynamics found within gender, which can help us understand why street harassment happens. Lastly, I will emphasize the importance of starting a conversation about the pervasiveness of street harassment and victim blaming, and why it is important to know where the blame should be instead of where it is almost always placed.

scholarly journals Communicating by Catcalling: Power Dynamics and Communicative Motivations in Street Harassment

2020 ◽  
pp. 107780122092708
Author(s):  
Maria DelGreco ◽  
Amy S. Ebesu Hubbard ◽  
Amanda Denes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Street Harassment ◽  
Lower Power ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
The Relationship

To understand the frequencies and communicative motivations of men engaging in street harassment, men’s tolerance of sexual harassment, and the relationship between power and street harassment experiences for both men and women using the frameworks of dyadic power theory and feminist theories, we surveyed 348 undergraduate participants at a university in the Pacific United States. Results indicated that men who believe they have lower power than women were the most likely to report engaging in street harassment. Results also indicated a positive relationship between men’s reported tolerance for sexual harassment and men’s reports of engaging in street harassment.

scholarly journals Gender differences in videoed accounts of victim blaming for revenge porn for self-taken and stealth-taken sexually explicit images and videos

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Attrill-Smith ◽  
Caroline J. Wesson ◽  
Michelle L. Chater ◽  
Lucy Weekes
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Victim Blame ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
Sexually Explicit Material ◽  
Sexually Explicit ◽  
Reported Study ◽  
Revenge Porn ◽  
World Hypothesis ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Future Work

Using video recounts from revenge porn victims, this study explores whether levels of victim blaming differs for the sharing of self- and stealth-taken sexually explicit images and videos. Building on previous work which has demonstrated victim blame for both self- and stealth generated images in occurrences of revenge porn (Zvi & Schechory-Bitton, 2020), the reported study presents an original and ecologically valid methodological approach whereby 342 (76 male, 266 female) participants (Mage = 39.27, SD = 11.70) from the UK watched videoed accounts of real experiences of falling victim to revenge porn, rather than using text based, often fictional, vignettes to attribute blame which dominate studies in this area. All data was collected in 2019. The results demonstrated that significantly more blame was assigned to victims when participants were indirectly rather than directly asked who was to blame for the occurrence of revenge porn, supporting the notion of an unconscious processing bias in attributing blame. More blame was also assigned to those victims who themselves generated the material compared to when it had been acquired without their awareness by a perpetrator, suggesting the cognitive bias to be in line with a just world hypothesis. Male participants were more likely to blame a victim than were female participants, although sex of victim and mode of shared sexually-explicit material (video or image) did not appear to affect levels of victim-blame. Findings are considered in terms of extant research and the need for future work in the area of victim blame and revenge pornography.

Chalk Back

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Natasha Harris-Harb ◽  
Sophie Sandberg
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Street Harassment ◽  
Class Project ◽  
The World

The Chalk Back movement that started in March 2016 is a rapidly growing collective of over 150 young activists from around the world. As part of a university class project, Sophie decided to collect experiences of street harassment, write them out verbatim with chalk on the streets where they occurred alongside the hashtag #stopstreetharassment, and post them on the Instagram account @catcallsofnyc. Two years later, the account gained popularity. Other catcallsof accounts opened in London, Amsterdam, Ottawa, Dhaka, Nairobi, Cairo, and Sydney. These accounts, discussed below, are just a few of those spanning 150 cities in 49 countries in 6 continents. We are two Chalk Back members—Natasha from Ottawa and Sophie from New York City—highlighting the risk, empowerment, and power dynamics of what we call chalking back by amplifying the voices of those doing this work around the world.

The Cultural Neuroscience of Holistic Thinking

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bobby K. Cheon ◽  
Rongxiang Tang ◽  
Joan Y. Chiao ◽  
Yi-Yuan Tang
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Holistic Thinking ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Related Potentials

Cultural diversity in patterns for understanding and conceptualizing one’s relationships with others may have led to diverse cultural systems for interpreting, thinking, and reasoning about the world. Eastern holistic systems of thought rely on connectedness and relations as a primary way of understanding the world, whereas Western analytic systems of thought rely on discreteness or substansiveness as an epistemological way of thinking. From attention and cognition to social cognitive processes, neural systems have likewise adapted differently across cultural contexts to facilitate divergent systems of social interactions and relations. This chapter reviews recent evidence for cultural influences on neural systems of analytic/holistic thinking, and discusses the relevance of this neuroscientific evidence, such as that from functional magnetic resonance imaging and analysis of event-related potentials, for cultural-psychological theories of holism and dialecticism.

Sexualities

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leila J. Rupp ◽  
Carly Thomsen
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Women's Sexuality ◽  
Women’S Experiences ◽  
Women’S Sexuality ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
Feminist Theories

This chapter explores the ways that feminist theorists, from both social constructionist and poststructural perspectives, have addressed the question of what sexuality is. We suggest that core to all kinds of feminist thinking about sexuality is that it cannot be understood simply as a fixed biological essence and that it involves power dynamics, as captured by the phrase sexual politics. Yet there is no agreement among feminist theorists about the questions of whether women’s sexuality is fundamentally different than men’s, or whether women’s experiences of sexuality are characterized more by danger or pleasure. We take up these debates to think through the history and future of feminist theories of sexuality.

scholarly journals Sexually Explicit User-Generated Content: Understanding Motivations and Behaviors using Social Cognitive Theory

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Sirianni ◽  
Arun Vishwanath
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Social Cognitive Theory ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Sexually Explicit

Technological advances by Web 2.0 media and mobile phones have recently enabled users to become producers of their own media content. Users are able to create and share photos and videos with speed and ease. A much different trend has emerged with these new technological affordances, though. Individuals are utilizing this new media and are creating and sharing sexually explicit user-generated content (SEUGC) of themselves. Four hundred undergraduate students completed an online survey to assess their likelihood to create and share SEUGC in the future. Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) was the framework used to analyze the factors that propel this behavior. Results suggest the influence of viewing pornography, sexual self-efficacy, and entertainment and arousal outcomes as triggers and motivators for engaging in this behavior. The model also revealed a desensitization effect towards negative consequences that might occur from creating and sharing SEUGC.

scholarly journals Does long-term focus increase victim-blaming? A study on the just-world hypothesis using the modified Stroop task

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Zsuzsa Komáromy ◽  
◽  
Réka János ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
Just World ◽  
Modified Stroop ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The World ◽  
Justice Motive ◽  
World Hypothesis

According to the just-world hypothesis (Lerner, 1980), people have an inherent need to believe that the world is a just place, where people generally get wha t they deserve. One of the benefits of holding this conviction is that it can promote investing in long-term goals. Acts of secondary victimization, such as blaming or derogating the victim can also be explained by just-world beliefs. This study looked at the effect of perceiving an innocent victim (a supposed threat to the belief in a just world) and long-term focus on the activation of the justice motive. We measured participants’ reaction times for justice-related and other stimuli with the help of the modified Stroop task (N=66). A significant difference between justice-related and neutral words has been found after being confronted with the threat to the belief in a just world, indicating that it indeed activated participants’ justice motive. Long-term focus did not have any significant effect. Higher levels of belief in a random world have been associated with greater victim-blaming tendencies.

scholarly journals Social cognitive impairment and autism: what are we trying to explain?

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1686) ◽  
pp. 20150082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Leekam
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Impairment ◽  
Social Cognitive Theories

Early psychological theories of autism explained the clinical features of this condition in terms of perceptual and sensory processing impairments. The arrival of domain-specific social cognitive theories changed this focus, postulating a ‘primary’ and specific psychological impairment of social cognition. Across the years, evidence has been growing in support of social cognitive and social attention explanations in autism. However, there has also been evidence for general non-social cognitive impairments in representational understanding, attention allocation and sensory processing. Here, I review recent findings and consider the case for the specificity and primacy of the social cognitive impairment, proposing that we should focus more explicitly on clinically valid features for insights on the integration of ‘social’ and ‘non-social’ cognition.

Can Women Cope?

1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria L. Banyard ◽  
Sandra A. Graham-Bermann
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Coping With Stress ◽  
Coping Process ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Coping Theory ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Individual

In this article, various feminist theories are used to critique selected psychological theories of coping with stress, a reformulated coping theory is outlined, and recommendations for future research are made. To date, theories of coping often portray women as less able copers than the samples of men with whom they are compared. A reformulated theory, based on different women's experiences, explicitly examines the role of social forces (sexism, racism) and access to power as variables in the coping process rather than solely focusing on the individual. Selected examples of research that contribute to such a revision are given. Revised theories and methodologies will encourage the more accurate appraisal of women's coping abilities and generate information vital to the creation of more inclusive and representative theories of coping.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document