Trust in cervical screening and attributions of blame for interval cancers following a national controversy.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated levels of trust and attributions of blame in connection with a cervical screening programme following a controversy related to the programme's audit, incorporating an experimental test of the effectiveness of new information materials. DESIGN: We compared responses in Ireland (N = 872) to equivalent responses in Scotland (N = 400). Participants in Ireland were randomly assigned to either a treatment group that received the information materials or a control group that did not. Participants then responded to questions about their trust in cervical screening and to whom they would attribute blame in a range of scenarios describing women diagnosed with cervical cancer between screening rounds. RESULTS: Results showed that the control group in Ireland had lower trust and attributed higher blame towards screening services than participants in Scotland. However, exposure to information materials in the treatment group improved trust and reduced blame. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that public controversies influence perceptions of screening programmes and underscore the importance of transparent, choice-based communication in mitigating these effects. The findings have valuable implications for screening services worldwide as all screening programmes will have associated false negative and false positive results.

Gender biases in attributions of blame for workplace mistreatment: a video experiment on the effect of perpetrator and target gender.

Introduction: Ambiguous psychological workplace mistreatment such as insulting or ignoring a co-worker might trigger gender bias. This study aims to examine whether female perpetrators receive more moral anger and blame from observers than men. Methods: A sample of Austrian workforce members (n = 880, 55.00% women, 44.89% men, 0.11% diverse) responded to standardized videos showing a perpetrator's angry insult and a perpetrator's exclusion of a co-worker from lunch. In total, we edited 32 video clips with four female and four male professional actors. We manipulated the following variables: 2 perpetrator gender (male/female) * 2 target gender (male/female) * 2 types of mistreatment (insult/exclusion). Results: As hypothesized, linear mixed-effects modeling revealed more moral anger and attributions of intent against female perpetrators than against men. Significant three-way interactions showed that female perpetrators were judged more harshly than men when the target was female and the mistreatment was exclusion. Female targets were blamed less when the perpetrator was female rather than male. Male targets did not evoke attributional biases. Observer gender had no significant interaction with perpetrator or target gender. Discussion: Our findings suggest that gender biases in perpetrator-blaming are dependent on target gender and type of mistreatment. The stereotype of women having it out for other women or being "too sensitive" when mistreated by men requires more attention in organizational anti-bias trainings.

College Women's Attributions of Blame for Experiences of Sexual Assault.

Little research has examined the factors that help to explain or predict different attributions of blame that rape survivors assign to their assault experiences. The current study sought to examine (a) rape survivors' attributions of blame to themselves and to external sources, specifically the perpetrator, the circumstances surrounding the assault (i.e., the situation), and society; (b) whether or not rape survivors attribute more blame to certain sources than others; and (c) which individual and situational factors that have been discussed in the sexual assault research literature help to explain self-blame, perpetrator blame, situational blame, and societal blame within a college sample ( N = 129). Results indicated that rape survivors attributed the most blame to themselves and to society, some blame to the situation, and the least blame to the male involved. Multiple regression analyses revealed that, for the most part, variables specific to the rape survivor (e.g., history of childhood sexual abuse, clarity of refusing sex, and perceived level of intoxication) significantly related to self-blame, whereas variables specific to assault severity significantly related to perpetrator blame (e.g., level of physical harm, type of rape, and recency of the assault), although in some unexpected ways. Age and recency of the assault were significantly related to situational blame. Clarity of refusing sex was the only variable that was significantly related to societal blame. Implications are discussed for prevention, education, and practice.