Aggressive behaviors occur when one person, a perpetrator, intentionally harms another person, a victim (e.g., Parrott & Giancola, 2007). When reporting their judgments, victims often report the aggressive behaviors as being more harmful than perpetrators—a so-called victim-perpetrator asymmetry. This asymmetry is well-established (Baumeister et al., 1990; Elshout et al., 2017; Ent & Parton, 2019; McCarthy & Rivers, 2021); however, there is little empirical evidence that experimentally tests the conditions under which the victim-perpetrator asymmetry is especially strong. We propose two studies to examine whether the victim-perpetrator asymmetry is stronger in conditions when people feel they will be evaluated for blameworthiness. Specifically, in our first proposed study, participants will read a vignette describing an aggressive interaction and will be assigned to adopt the perspective of either the victim or the perpetrator. In our second proposed study, participants will either recall an instance when they intentionally harmed another person (as the perpetrator of aggression) or an instance when they were harmed by another person (as the victim of aggression). Further, in both studies, half the participants will be told we are interested in determining who was more to blame in the situation (i.e., “blameworthiness” condition) and half will receive no such instructions (i.e., the control condition). All participants will then rate the harmfulness of the aggressive behavior. We hypothesize that the victim-perpetrator asymmetry will be found in both conditions but will be stronger in situations where blame will purportedly be assigned.

当一个人（作案者）故意伤害另一个人（受害人）时，就会发生侵略行为（例如，Parrott＆Giancola，2007年）。在报告自己的判断时，受害人经常报告其侵略性行为比肇事者有害得多，即所谓的受害人-肇事者不对称。这种不对称是公认的（Baumeister等，1990; Elshout等，2017; Ent＆Parton，2019; McCarthy＆Rivers，2021）; 但是，几乎没有经验证据可以通过实验来测试受害者-施暴者的不对称性特别强的条件。我们提议进行两项研究，以检验在人们认为他们应该受到责备的情况下，受害者-施暴者的不对称性是否更强。具体来说，在我们提出的第一个研究中，参与者将阅读描述侵略性互动的小插曲，并被指派采用受害者或作案者的观点。在我们提出的第二项研究中，参与者要么想起故意伤害另一个人的事件（作为侵略的肇事者），要么被另一个人伤害的情况（作为侵略的受害者）。此外，在两项研究中，一半的参与者将被告知我们有兴趣确定在这种情况下谁应该受到更多的责备（即“应受责备”条件），而另一半将不会收到此类指示（即控制条件）。然后，所有参与者都将对侵略行为的危害进行评估。