Prototypes of Hate and Expectations of the Model Victim

Abstract

This research explored the content of hate crime prototypes in a North American context, with particular attention to how such prototypes might influence blame attributions. In Study 1a, participants were recruited from a blended sample of universities ( n = 110) and community members ( n = 102) and asked to report their thoughts about typical hate crime offenses, victims, and offenders. These open-ended responses were coded, and common themes were identified. In Study 1b, a new group of participants ( n = 290) were presented with these themes and asked to rate each for their characteristics of hate crimes. Studies 1a and 1b confirmed the presence of a clear prototype of hate crimes, such that (a) perpetrators were believed to be lower status White men with clear expressions of bias, (b) hate crime offenses were believed to be acts of interpersonal violence accompanied by slurs or verbal abuse, and (c) hate crime victims were thought to be members of a marginalized group who remain passive during the offense. Study 2 explored the consequences of victim prototypes on assessments of victim blame. Participants ( n = 296) were recruited from York University and presented with a case vignette that varied the prototypicality of a victim of hate, depicting him as either Black or White and either passive, verbally responsive, or physically confrontational in the context of an assault. Participants showed greatest sympathy for the Black victim who passively ignored verbal harassment but increasingly assigned blame when the Black victim spoke or reacted physically. When the victim was White, participants showed little variation in their assessment of blame as a function of the victim’s behavior. These results suggest that Black victims are subjected to greater behavioral scrutiny than White victims and that sympathy for victims of hate may be contingent on their passivity in the face of harassment.