Methodological Issues in Research on Child Sexual Abuse Attributions

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate methodological influences in research on child sexual abuse attributions. Two hundred and forty respondents were exposed to a newspaper report of a child sexual abuse incident. Methodological influences on attributional thinking were assessed using a 2 (population: university students vs. general population) x 2 (lexical description of abuse: the language of abusive vs. consensual sexual activity) x 2 (probe questions: closed vs. open-ended) factorial design with attributions of culpability being entered as dependent measures. The results showed that respondents were significantly more likely to attribute some degree of culpability: (a) to the victim when closed probe questions were used, when the language of consensual sexual activity was used to describe the abuse, and when the respondent was a university student; (b) to the offender when closed probe questions were used; (c) to the non-offending parent when closed probe questions were used and when respondents were drawn from the general population; and (d) to society in general when closed probe questions were used, when ‘abusive’ language was used to describe the abuse incident, and when respondents were drawn from the general population.