HMN 2026: How Belief that men ‘evolved to be like this’ could lead to more victim-blaming in rape cases

New research from the U.K. suggests that being exposed to old ideas that portray male sexual violence as having an evolutionary explanation—such as it being biological and inevitable—can lead people to be more likely to blame the victim in rape cases. The researchers showed more than 600 people videos of either an evolutionary explanation of male sexual aggression, a sociocultural explanation, or an unrelated control video. Those participants then read a scenario that, while meeting the legal definition of rape, contained ambiguities, and then were asked to judge who was the perpetrator and who was the victim.

The researchers say the people who had been shown the evolutionary explanation before were more likely to lay the blame on the victim, compared to those who saw the sociocultural explanation video.

Sexual violence against women and girls is a serious concern, and past research suggests that evolutionary theories have the potential to promote victim-blaming attitudes among laypeople. This registered report investigated whether evolutionary explanations for male aggression increase biological essentialism, and whether this, in turn, impacts attributions about an “ambiguous” rape vignette.

This two-part study, published in Royal Society Open Science, collected data from 606 demographically representative U.K. participants. Science outreach videos were used as the experimental manipulation following facts about men’s sexual aggression: an evolutionary explanation presented by David Buss, a sociocultural explanation presented by Jackson Katz, and a control condition (video about nature). Then, participants completed a biological essentialism measure, read a rape vignette, and completed measures of rape attributions.

The results indicated that the evolutionary condition led to higher victim culpability as compared to the social condition, through an increase in biological essentialism. There were no effects of the experimental conditions when compared to the nature video. There were no effects on perpetrator culpability. The researchers conclude that evolutionary psychology can increase victim-blaming attitudes through an increase in the belief that gender roles are natural and immutable, and that this can be understood through the theoretical framework “the cultural scaffolding of rape.”

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