HOW DO VICTIM-FRAMING AND CELEBRITY STATUS IMPACT SOCIAL JUDGEMENTS?

Abstract

This study explored the impact of celebrity status and victim framing on social judgments. People are inclined to favor others because appearance, fame, and familiarity (Nayak, 2015). Language can also influence people’s judgements; one study found that people increase their support for someone who is labeled a “victim,” even when they are the alleged perpetrator of a sexual assault (Flusberg et al., 2022). The primary goal of this study was to examine how language and fame interact to shape people’s social evaluations. Six hundred participants across sic conditions, read an article about a domestic abuse case revolving a celebrity couple or a stranger couple. The U.S subjects read an article that either framed the male alleged perpetrator as a victim, the female accuser as a victim or no victim-framed protagonist. Results indicated a main affect for support for each protagonist when framed as the victim compared to the baseline condition. Participants in the celebrity status condition were less likely to support the female accuser across all conditions compared to the stranger condition. The research suggest that people evaluations of others can be based off familiarity and language manipulation. Keywords: Social judgements, victim-framing, language effect, celebrity status