Everybody is doing it: the effects of base rate information on correspondent inferences from violations of perfect and imperfect duties

Abstract

Three experiments examined the extent to which people’s correspondent inferences from immoral behaviors are influenced by the base rates of those behaviors. Supporting a theory by Trafimow and Trafimow (1999), when immoral behaviors violated what Kant termed imperfect duties (duties that people only sometimes have to perform to be moral), then base rates strongly influenced whether correspondent inferences were made. However, if the immoral behaviors violated what Kant termed perfect duties (duties that people always have to perform to be moral), then base rates were significantly less relevant.