Bystanders' Perceptions of Perpetrators and Victims of Hate Crime

Abstract

This study used the person perception vignette method to examine whether people perceive hate crime victims as more culpable than non-hate crime victims. In a between-participants design, participants were randomly assigned to read a vignette depicting a nonhate crime or a comparable hate crime motivated by the perpetrator's hatred for either the victim's race, sexual orientation, or religion. Results showed that participants assigned more blame to the victim in the non-hate crime condition compared to the victims in each of the three hate crime conditions. In addition, they perceived the perpetrators as more guilty in each of the three hate crime conditions compared to the non-hate crime condition. In addition, people with prejudiced attitudes perceived both hate crime and non-hate crime victims as more culpable and both hate crime and non-hate crime perpetrators as less culpable than did unprejudiced people.