University of Twente Student Theses

Login

The victim’s intention to participate in Victim-Offender Mediation

Brox, Pia (2020) The victim’s intention to participate in Victim-Offender Mediation.

[img] PDF
825kB
Abstract:Due to the promising effects of restorative justice, the relatively low participation rate among victims in Victim Offender mediation programs (VOM), and the growing interest in explaining the victims motivation to participate, the current study aimed at investigating factors that explain victims’ intentions to participate in Victim- Offender- Mediation. Four hypotheses were proposed based on the theory of Planned Behaviour and the Big Five Personality Model. Firstly, it was expected that victims with a higher positive attitude towards restorative justice have a higher intention to participate in VOM. Secondly, victims with a higher subjective norm towards restorative justice have a higher intention to participate in VOM. Thirdly, victims with a higher perceived behaviour control towards restorative justice have a higher intention to participate in a Victim- Offender mediation Fourthly, vicitm’s with high levels of neuroticism have a lower intention to participate in VOM, because they have less behavioural control. Thus, perceived behaviour control is also expected to be a mediator of the relationship between the personality trait neuroticism and the intention to participate in VOM. The hypotheses were tested through an online survey with a total of 73 participants who were asked to answer personality questions that aimed at assessing the participants level of neuroticism. Then they were encouraged to read a crime scenario and imagine themselves being the victim in it. Afterwards, the victim received an invitation letter to take part in a Victim- Offender mediation and was asked to estimate how they would react to it. The proposed questions were conceptualisations reflecting the attitude towards VOM, the subjective norm towards VOM, perceived behaviour control towards VOM and the intention to participate in VOM. The outcome of this study revealed that the victim’s attitude, the victim’s subjective norm and the victim’s perceived behavioural control are important predictors of the victim’s intention to participate in VOM, supporting the first, second and third hypotheses. However, neuroticism was found to not have an effect on the victim’ intention to participate in VOM even when mediated by perceived behaviour control, thus rejecting the fourth hypothesis. These findings indicate that the victim’s attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control towards restorative justice can explain 64.4% of the variance in the victims’ intention to participate in VOM. This should be taken into account by VOM practitioners when developing interventions to increase the participants' rates with the goal of decreasing the severity and frequency of victim’s post- traumatic stress symptoms. Further research should target the assessment of the relationship between the personality trait neuroticism and the intention to participate in VOM more into depth.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/82378
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page