Victim blaming
Roy Baumeisteress, a social and personality psychologist, argued that blaming the victim is not always wrong. According to him, it can lead to new ideas that show that the victim was at least partly responsible for the act. Baumeister argues that the common explanations of violence and cruelty are not helpful because they say that the victim was innocent. According to him, in the classic telling of "the myth of pure evil," the innocent, well-meaning victims are going about their business when they are suddenly assaulted by terrible villains. The situation, however, is not this simple; In most cases, the victim has done something to either anger the offender, or to help the offender's actions. In spite of this, the actions that follow may be more important than the "victim's" first offense.