When Violations of Perfect Duties Do Not Cause Strong Trait Attributions

Abstract

It is well documented that violations of perfect duties (duties that can never be violated by moral agents) cause strong trait attributions. Brown, Trafimow, and Gregory (2005) found an exception to this general principle when the violation is performed under extreme circumstances. In the present research, we hypothesized that extreme circumstances are not necessary to weaken the attributional effect of violations of perfect duties provided that the violations were performed to help another person. Two experiments were performed in which target people violated perfect or imperfect duties for an unspecified reason or to help a third party. As expected, perfect duty violations did not result in strong trait attributions when they were performed to help someone, although they did result in strong trait attributions otherwise. Thus, the data support that the motive to help is sufficient to eliminate correspondent inferences to perfect duty violations.