Victim framing shapes attitudes across diverse contexts

by Stephen J. Flusberg, Asher Donnelly, J. D. Jarolimek, Esmé Nix, Lili B. Davis, Boshang Yin, Lindsey Anderson, Dylan Ciolfi, Kevin J. Holmes

A person accused of victimizing others may be described as the “real” victim by their defenders to garner empathy and mitigate blame. Recent research shows that this rhetorical strategy, known as “victim framing,” can increase support for a man accused of sexually assaulting a woman. Little is known, however, about its effects in other contexts. Across five experiments (N = 2,941), we investigated whether victim framing generalizes beyond prototypical sexual assault cases. Participants read fictionalized news reports where one party was labeled the victim (or neither was) and expressed support for the individuals involved. We found significant framing effects across diverse scenarios: (a) a man accused of sexual assault who self-described as the victim; (b) a woman accused of sexually assaulting a man; (c) same-sex assault allegations involving men or women; (d) a celebrity or stranger accused of physically assaulting his girlfriend; and (e) a police officer who shot an unarmed civilian. As in prior work, only participants who explicitly cited the victim-related language as influencing their evaluations showed robust and reliable framing effects. Multiple observer characteristics (e.g., gender, political ideology) predicted attitudes in expected ways, yet victim framing effects persisted when controlling for these individual differences. Taken together, these findings are consistent with a social-pragmatic account of victim framing: many people treat a victim label as communicating relevant information and adjust their evaluations accordingly, while others either do not draw this inference or weigh other information more strongly. Our findings highlight the power and limits of explicit forms of linguistic framing.