Alcohol and Acquaintance Rape in Australia: Testing the Presupposition Model of Attributions About Responsibility and Blame

According to the presupposition model of attributions about responsibility and blame (Bradbury & Fincham, 1990), an attribution of blame presupposes an attribution of responsibility. Both constructs share the dimensions of choice, intention, and accountability, but an additional dimension of liability relates only to blame. Reactions of 260 university students to acquaintance-rape scenarios portraying different levels of alcohol intoxication were examined. Results showed that the model's dimensions explained much of the variance in attributions of responsibility and blame, although the hierarchical structure was not supported. Mediational analyses suggest that different attributional principles apply when assigning victim and perpetrator responsibility, which may explain why intoxicated victims are assigned more responsibility than sober victims, but intoxicated perpetrators are assigned less responsibility than sober perpetrators.