For Better or Worse: Attributions about Drunken Aggression Toward Male and Female Victims

Abstract

Research on attributions about drunken violence has suggested that intoxication serves to decrease responsibility attributed to aggressors while increasing responsibility attributed to victims. In this study, we used a scenario depicting a violent interaction in which intoxication of aggressor and victim and victim sex were varied. Subjects made attributions of blame, causality, responsibility, and normative judgments about aggressor and victim. In general, drunkenness made things worse for the intoxicated person in terms of observers’ judgments: A drunken aggressor was blamed more than a sober aggressor, an intoxicated victim—whether male or female—was blamed more than a sober victim, and aggression toward a drunken victim was rated as more acceptable than aggression toward a sober victim. Results are discussed in terms of the use of alcohol intoxication as a gender-independent cue to blame the victim, and the increasing societal disapproval of drunkenness.