Affective Disgust Predicts Blame for Gay Male Homicide Victims

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Quinn ◽  
Allison Louise Skinner-Dorkenoo ◽  
James Wages

For certain crimes there is a tendency in the U.S. to blame individuals for their victimization. Previous work has shown that affective states can impact blame attribution. Drawing upon this work, the purpose of the current pre-registered research was to examine the relation between affective disgust and victim blame attribution. In Study 1, as participants’ (N = 203) level of implicit disgust associations with gay men increased, their tendency to blame a gay male homicide victim also increased, whereas their agreement that the homicide qualified as a hate crime decreased. In Study 2, disgust was experimentally induced by exposing participants (N = 431) to disgusting (e.g., vomit, insects) or neutral images (e.g., mug, stapler). Inducing disgust increased victim blame and decreased perceptions that the homicide constituted a hate crime. However, exploratory mediation analyses in both studies showed that the impact of disgust on hate crime applications is best explained as an indirect effect of victim blame. Taken together, these findings suggest that both individual differences in implicit gay-disgust and situational feelings of disgust may underlie people’s perceptions of how blameworthy a victim is for the crime committed against them.

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (23) ◽  
pp. 3656-3685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mollimichelle K. Cabeldue ◽  
Robert J. Cramer ◽  
Andre Kehn ◽  
James W. Crosby ◽  
Jeffrey S. Anastasi

Employing the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) of 2009 and other such legislation as a backdrop, the present study evaluated the nature of beliefs about hate-crime legislation, offenders, and victims. In addition, it investigated construct validity (i.e., political beliefs and prejudice) and predictive validity (i.e., blame attribution and sentencing recommendations). A total of 403 U.S. adults completed measures of prejudice and an initial pool of 50 items forming the proposed Hate Crime Beliefs Scale (HCBS). Participants were randomly assigned to read one of four hate-crime vignettes, which varied in regard to type of prejudice (racial-, sexual orientation-, transgender-, and religion-based prejudices) and then responded to blame and sentencing questions. Factor analyses of the HCBS resulted in four sub-scales: Negative Views (i.e., higher scores reflect negative views of legislation and minority group protection), Offender Punishment (i.e., higher scores suggest endorsement of greater punishment), Deterrence (i.e., greater scores denote support for hate-crime legislation as a deterrent of more violence), and Victim Harm (i.e., higher scores reflect pro-victim attitudes). Greater pro-legislation and pro-victim beliefs were related to liberal political beliefs and less prejudicial attitudes, with some exceptions. Controlling for a number of demographic, situational, and attitudinal covariates, the Negative Views sub-scale displayed predictive utility, such that more negative views of legislation/minority group protection were associated with elevated victim blame, as well as lower perpetrator blame and sentencing recommendations. Results are discussed in the context of hate-crime research and policy, with additional implications considered for trial strategy, modern prejudice, and blame attribution theory.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Kristin Herget ◽  
Franziska Bötzl

Companies increasingly seek to use gay protagonists in audio-visual commercials to attract a new affluent target group. There is also growing demand for the diversity present in society to be reflected in media formats such as advertising. Studies have shown, however, that heterosexual consumers (especially men), who may be part of the company's loyal consumer base, tend to react negatively to gay-themed advertising campaigns. Searching for an instrument to mitigate this unwanted effect, the present study investigated whether carefully selected background music can shape the perceived gender of gay male advertising protagonists. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects online experiment (musical connotation × gender of the participant), 218 heterosexual participants watched a commercial promoting engagement rings that featured gay male protagonists, scored with feminine- or masculine-connoted background music. As expected, women generally reacted more positively than men to the advertising. Men exposed to the masculine-connoted background music rated the promoted brand more positively, and masculine music also enhanced (at least in the short term) these men's acceptance of gay men in general (low and medium effect sizes) more than was the case for feminine background music. Carefully selected background music affecting the perceived gender of gay male advertising protagonists may prevent negative reactions from heterosexual audiences and, therefore, motivate companies to use gay protagonists in television commercials on a more regular basis.


2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 311-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Brambilla ◽  
David A. Butz

Two studies examined the impact of macrolevel symbolic threat on intergroup attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 71), participants exposed to a macrosymbolic threat (vs. nonsymbolic threat and neutral topic) reported less support toward social policies concerning gay men, an outgroup whose stereotypes implies a threat to values, but not toward welfare recipients, a social group whose stereotypes do not imply a threat to values. Study 2 (N = 78) showed that, whereas macrolevel symbolic threat led to less favorable attitudes toward gay men, macroeconomic threat led to less favorable attitudes toward Asians, an outgroup whose stereotypes imply an economic threat. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of a general climate of threat in shaping intergroup attitudes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evinc Dogan ◽  
Goran Petkovic

Food and gastronomic values of a country are distinguished assets in marketing places. The aim of this article is exploring the ways in which Serbia rebrands itself through promoting the local food and culture and positions the nation brand in a transnational marketing context. The key concepts for this research originate from the literature in place marketing and branding. The gastronomic offer is an instrument shaping people’s perceptions about Serbia that is represented and communicated through values, narratives and manifestations. Accordingly, semiotics is adopted for analysing the data, which builds on three levels: axiological, narrative and discursive. Content analysis is used as a supportive method to infer meanings from codes and to determine emerging themes overarching the units of meaning.  The tourism marketing strategy of The National Tourism Organization of Serbia (TOS) is closely examined through the touristic promotion materials (i.e. catalogues, posters, Soul Food video). In sum, the analysis results reveal how the country branding strategy of Serbia is handled in terms of the impact on the perceptions with a focus on food as a tourist attraction. The research is valuable for place-marketers, strategists, governments, and scholars from different fields of academia.


2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques S. Gansler ◽  
William Lucyshyn ◽  
John Rigilano
Keyword(s):  

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