A Social Identity Approach to Understanding Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Allegations

Abstract

Two studies investigated the role of group allegiances in contributing to the failure of institutions to appropriately respond to allegations of child sexual abuse. In Study 1, 601 participants read a news article detailing an allegation of child sexual abuse against a Catholic Priest. Catholics were more protective of the accused–and more skeptical of the accuser—than other participants, an effect that was particularly pronounced among strongly identified Catholics. In Study 2 (N = 404), the tendency for Catholics to be more protective of the accused and more skeptical of the accuser than non-Catholics was replicated. Moreover, these effects held independently of the objective likelihood that the accused was guilty. Overall, the data show that group loyalties provide a psychological motivation to disbelieve child abuse allegations. Furthermore, the people for whom this motivation is strongest are also the people who are most likely to be responsible for receiving and investigating allegations: highly identified ingroup members. The findings highlight the psychological mechanisms that may limit the ability of senior Church figures to conduct impartial investigations into allegations of child abuse within the Church.

Reporting Child Sexual Abuse within Religious Settings: Challenges and Future Directions

“…Minto et al () noted that the trend towards disbelieving allegations of child abuse perpetrated by clergy was contrary to what may be expected. Ingroup behaviour tends towards the rapid exclusion of the deviant.…”

“…In a recent experimental study of these effects in the context of religious institutional affiliation, Minto et al () examined the extent to which social identity (operationalised as religious identification) had an impact on churchgoers' propensities to believe an allegation of historical sexual abuse by a Catholic priest. The authors found that Christians (both of Catholic and non‐Catholic denominations) were more likely to be sceptical about the allegation, rate the alleged victim as less credible and rate the priest as more credible, than non‐Christians (a mixed group comprising participants of non‐Christian faiths and of no faith at all).…”

“…That is, Catholics who identified strongly with their faith were more likely to be sceptical of the allegation (including finding the alleged victim as less credible and the priest as more credible) than those who identified with their faith to a lesser extent, but these responses were not tempered when evidence of certainty of the priest's guilt was presented. In their discussion, Minto et al () stated that these effects represent a motivated degradation of alleged victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church, and an attempt to bolster the sense of morality that the Church holds most dear.…”

“…Discussing this phenomenon, Minto and her colleagues echo Brackenridge's thoughts regarding ‘onlookers’; acknowledging the existence of the ‘deviant priest’ threatens the validity and integrity of the institution, and it is the institution through which the onlookers gain a sense of identity and purpose. It is far easier, therefore, to exclude the victim, whose report threatens the institution and therefore the institutionally derived identity, than to deal with the report on its own terms (Minto et al, ).…”

“…The descriptive conceptual explanations for a lack of recognition or reporting of sexual abuse within institutions (e.g. Brackenridge, ; Scheper‐Hughes and Devine, ), coupled with the recent experimental data reported by Minto et al (), suggest that enacting blanket mandatory reporting legislation may not be effective in improving reporting practices in religious settings. Mandatory reporting still requires people to believe that abuse may be happening; the discussion so far indicates that those most likely to observe the signs may be the least likely to believe them.…”