MeTooLate effect: trust denial and victim blame for sexual misconduct not immediately reported
Alice Lucarini (University of Padova)
In the past years Western society has been invested by a new phenomenon, the #MeToo movement, born with the aim of spreading awareness in the public opinion about the numerosity of sexual harassment and violence episodes against women. Although this movement encountered a large number of sustainers, there are also many people who strongly question its credibility, especially when a sexual harassment event is reporting many years later. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the moment in which a woman reports a sexual harassment (immediately vs. several years later), affects the opinion and the evaluations of the event, the victim and the perpetrator. In an experimental study, participants (N=162) were exposed to descriptions of sexual abuses that were reported immediately or after several years. Results showed that when women report late, people trust them less and attribute less guilty to the alleged perpetuator. This tendency is increased among participants who attribute less secondary emotions to the victim, among politically conservative participants, and among participants characterized by high sexism levels. We also found the same pattern for the attribution of responsibility, with participants characterized by high sexism, a conservatory ideology and low attribution of secondary emotion.
Italiano 
English