Beyond the Stranger in the Woods: Investigating the Complexity of Adult Rape Cases in the Courtroom

Perceptions of male-perpetrated sexual assault: The impact of victim gender and perceived sexual orientation.

“…Victim type included four levels: (a) ambiguous male victim (i.e., sexual orientation not mentioned), (b) gay male victim, (c) straight male victim, and (d) straight female victim, which served as a control. A straight female victim was used as a control because prior research involving adult female victims offers a clear pattern of results for this condition (e.g., female participants were more provictim than male participants toward female victims; see Golding et al, 2022). Based on prior research, we generated the following hypotheses.…”

“…The summary was approximately 1,700 words and presented a general overview of the trial, followed by the prosecution's case, the defense's case, direct and crossexamination of each witness, and the judge's instructions to the jurors (see the online supplemental materials for example trial summary). The summary used in the present study was based on prior mock-trial research investigating adult rape (Golding et al, 2022). For each condition, the trial summary described the same case facts, except for the details required to manipulate the independent variables of victim sexual orientation and gender (i.e., victim type).…”

“…Past research on legal decision making and sexual assault has focused almost exclusively on female victim/male defendant sexual assault cases. As noted by Golding et al (2022), this research has typically manipulated victim and/or defendant characteristics and examined how certain variables impact jurors regarding verdict and other dependent measures (e.g., victim credibility, victim blame). Regarding legal decision-making research and male sexual assault victims, the literature can best be described as "limited."…”

Mock Juror Perceptions of a Male or Female Adult Rape Victim Crying in the Courtroom

“…This is especially true in cases of acquaintance rape, which are more common than stranger rape (e.g., Black et al, 2011;Spohn & Holleran, 2001;Ullman et al, 2019). In acquaintance rape, the issue at hand is typically consent, rather than whether the accused and victim had intercourse (see Golding, Lynch et al, 2023). Given the ambiguous nature of acquaintance rape cases, jurors have been shown to subconsciously include extralegal factors when making their case decisions (e.g., Devine et al, 2001;Dinos et al, 2015;Kalven et al, 1966;Reskin & Visher, 1986).…”

“…Psychology and law research investigating legal decision-making and rape (see Golding, Lynch et al, 2023), including the research described above, has largely focused on female adult rape victims. Moreover, of the studies involving related research, few have investigated the expressions of emotion by adult male rape victims, and these studies have produced equivocal findings.…”