The role of a posteriori victim information in judgments of blame and sanction

Abstract

Information about a behavioral event that an observer possesses with certainty, but which an actor has to assess probabilistically ( a posteriori information), strongly influences ascriptions of blame and sanction when the actor's behavior produces negative consequences. This finding was obtained in four experiments in which a victim was killed in an act of presumed self-defense. The first study demonstrated that a posteriori information indicating that the victim was an innocent person as opposed to a dangerous criminal led to heightened ratings of actor blame. The second and third studies replicated these findings (and extended them to sentence recommendations) and also indicated that this effects was due specifically to the victim's criminal nature rather than to a globally negative dispositional evaluation of the victim. The fourth study provided evidence that the effect of a posteriori information was based on subjects holding the actor up to a different standard of reasonable behavior rather than to inferences about the actor's perception of the situation.