Reactions to Crime Victims: Effects of Victims' Emotional State and Type of Relationship

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the impact of potential supporters' relationship to a crime victim (communal—very close friend, exchange—casual acquaintance) and the victim's emotional reactions (fear, sadness, or anger) on appraisal of the victim's needs, the costs of helping, and intentions to offer assistance. Results of the first experiment (N = 246 women), which involved a robbery victim, showed that those in a communal relationship judged the victim to be more needy, whereas those in an exchange relationship judged the costs of helping to be greater. Communal participants expressed stronger intentions to offer help. The victim's emotional reaction influenced appraisals of need (anger < fear and sad) and intentions to help (anger < sad), but not appraisals of costs. Needs and costs were significantly correlated with intentions for those in the communal and exchange conditions. These results were essentially replicated in the second study, which included modifications designed to correct for alternative explanations of the results and to test the generalizability of the findings to other types of crime victims (burglary). Results from Study 2 (N = 233 women) yielded interaction effects for needs and costs, indicating that whether communal participants perceived the victim to be more needy, or whether exchange participants judged the costs of helping to be higher, depended on the type of emotion expressed by the victim. Regardless of their relationship to the victim, participants expressed the weakest intentions to assist the angry victim.