Victim Gender, Rater Attitudes, and Rater Violence History Influence Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence.

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Perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV) have been proposed to play a role in the stigmatization and underreporting of violence by individuals who are victimized by intimate partners, especially in cases that are inconsistent with the male-to-female IPV paradigm. We examined the independent and combined influences of victim and perpetrator sex, attitudes toward gender roles, and history of IPV perpetration on perceptions of IPV among 240 college students. We employed a vignette methodology to manipulate perpetrator and victim sex in a fully crossed design. Results indicate that violence perpetrated against males is perceived as less serious and more justified, and male victims are perceived to be more blameworthy than female victims. Traditional gender role attitudes and histories of IPV perpetration are associated with greater blaming of victims and justification of perpetrators across contexts.