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Abstract
| This study investigated perceptions of domestic violence victims in mixed-race relationships, specifically focusing on Hispanic and Caucasian mixed-race couples. Perceptions of victims are influenced by several factors, including the racial composition of the relationship, the perceiver’s previous exposure to violence, and the gender and attitudes towards women the perceiver possesses. One hundred and eighteen participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, each reading a vignette depicting a domestic violence case. The race of the perpetrator and the victim was manipulated while the gender of both remained constant. A modification of the Domestic Violence Blame Scale (Petretic-Jackson, Sandberg, & Jackson, 1994) was used to assess the perceptions of the victim and the perpetrator in the vignette. Participants also completed a questionnaire assessing their attitude towards women and provided basic demographic information. It was predicted that participants would place the highest amount of blame on the victim when the violence was perpetrated by a Hispanic man on a Caucasian woman. Additionally, participants were predicted to place a higher amount of blame on victims in mixed-race relationships. While the hypotheses were not supported, results indicated that positive attitudes towards women were correlated with the amount of blame placed on the victim. Future research should focus on expanding in the area of domestic violence and mixed-race couples; additionally, more research should be conducted that focuses on different relationship compositions and comes from varied populations. |
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