Juror Perceptions Of Victim Credibility In Cases Of Intimate Partner Rape: An Evaluation Of Victim Depression And Victim Body Weight

The current study evaluated the influence of depression and weight gain resulting from intimate partner rape (IPR) on jurors’ decisions regarding a defendant’s guilt and a complainant’s credibility. Past research indicates that women find more guilty verdicts than men in IPR cases. We used a 2 (Sex: male & female participants), by 2 (Source: college [n = 310] vs. Amazon Mechanical Turk [mTurk; n = 234 samples], by 3 (Complainant outcomes: Control vs. Depression vs. Depression + weight gain) between subjects design with perpetrator verdict, sentencing length, and complainant’s credibility as dependent variables. Victim credibility ratings were significantly higher in the college group compared to the mTurk group within the depression + weight gain condition. Participants in the college group rendered more guilty verdicts (77.5%) than those in the mTurk group (59.1%) and higher complainant credibility than mTurkers. Additional ancillary variables (e.g., rape myth acceptance, mental illness stigma, and obesity myths) were found to be significant predictors of victim credibility ratings, with mTurkers holding higher levels of these biases. Given the disproportionate gender breakdown in each of the samples, further data collection is warranted in order to explore the differences among our two samples that could account for the results.