Abstract
Public understanding of what constitutes interpersonal violence has been the topic of much conceptual debate. In this study, we aim to contribute to this literature by generating empirical insight. We recruit a quota representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 724) and expose participants to vignettes describing interpersonal conflict. We use a conjoint design to manipulate six features of the vignettes and examine how these impact participants’ willingness to label the incident as violent. Results showed that – in line with ideal victim effects – events involving more vulnerable victims and more blameworthy perpetrators are more likely to be labelled as violence. Further, ‘traditional’ representations of interpersonal violence as events that produce physical injury to the victim, generated high violence ratings. Still, public understanding of interpersonal violence was relatively inclusive – various non-physical confrontations were also considered to be violent.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
