Judgments Of Blame Research Articles

At the Heart of Morality Lies Folk Psychology

Moral judgments about an agent's behavior are enmeshed with inferences about the agent's mind. Folk psychology—the system that enables such inferences—therefore lies at the heart of moral judgment. We examine three related folk-psychological concepts that together shape people's judgments of blame: intentionality, choice, and free will. We discuss people's understanding and use of these concepts, address recent findings that challenge the autonomous role of these concepts in moral judgment, and conclude that choice is the fundamental concept of the three, defining the core of folk psychology in moral judgment.

Judgments of cause and blame: The effects of intentionality and foreseeability

What are the factors that influence everyday attributions of cause and blame? The current studies focus on sequences of events that lead to adverse outcomes, and examine people’s cause and blame ratings for key events in these sequences. Experiment 1 manipulated the intentional status of candidate causes and their location in a causal chain. Participants rated intentional actions as more causal, and more blameworthy, than unintentional actions or physical events. There was also an overall effect of location, with later events assigned higher ratings than earlier events. Experiment 2 manipulated both intentionality and foreseeability. The preference for intentional actions was replicated, and there was a strong influence of foreseeability: actions were rated as more causal and more blameworthy when they were highly foreseeable. These findings are interpreted within two prominent theories of blame, [Shaver, K. G. (1985). The attribution of blame: Causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness. New York: Springer-Verlag] and [Alicke, M. D. (2000). Culpable control and the psychology of blame. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 556–574]. Overall, it is argued that the data are more consistent with Alicke’s model of culpable control.

Crime and punishment: Distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional analyses in moral judgment

Recent research in moral psychology has attempted to characterize patterns of moral judgments of actions in terms of the causal and intentional properties of those actions. The present study directly compares the roles of consequence, causation, belief and desire in determining moral judgments. Judgments of the wrongness or permissibility of action were found to rely principally on the mental states of an agent, while judgments of blame and punishment are found to rely jointly on mental states and the causal connection of an agent to a harmful consequence. Also, selectively for judgments of punishment and blame, people who attempt but fail to cause harm more are judged more leniently if the harm occurs by independent means than if the harm does not occur at all. An account of these phenomena is proposed that distinguishes two processes of moral judgment: one which begins with harmful consequences and seeks a causally responsible agent, and the other which begins with an action and analyzes the mental states responsible for that action.

Counterfactual thinking following negative outcomes: evidence for group and self‐protective biases

AbstractDespite the robustness of self‐serving and group‐serving biases in attribution, there has been only limited evidence for these effects in counterfactual thinking. The present studies demonstrate that, following a negative outcome, individuals counterfactualize external factors relatively more than internal factors when they are identified with the target (i.e. ingroup members or the self) than when they are not. However, these effects are found only for external factors that are in some way disadvantageous to the target and could have led to the negative outcome. Implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between counterfactual thinking and judgments of causality, blame and affect are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Predicting emotional reactions after being harmed by another

Being harmed by others is a frequent and disturbing experience in normal social life, resulting in the arousal of two emotional complexes, anger and worry. The present research developed a model to predict these two dimensions of emotional response to being harmed. It was argued that in addition to being driven by judgments of blame, anger is also enhanced by assessments that one's social face has been damaged. The victim's judgment of this face loss also contributes to feelings of worry, as one's social credibility has been compromised in the eyes of others by being harmed. Worry is further augmented by the victim's concern about the damage done to his or her relationship with the perpetrator by the harm‐doing. As hypothesized, both perceived image loss and blame judgments were found to predict the emotional complex of anger, while image loss and the perceived harm to the relationship predicted the emotional complex of worry. This research supplemented the well‐researched Western construct of blame in response to harm by incorporating the more salient collectivist concerns of image loss and relationship damage, pushing our models of social processes to be more comprehensive and ultimately universal in their scope.

Rape blame as a function of alcohol presence and resistance type

Attributions of rape blame may be related to variables such as alcohol presence and resistance type used during a sexual assault. The current study sought to assess participants' attributions of responsibility for a sexual assault based on these two variables through the use of several written scenarios. Two hundred and thirteen male and female college students participated in the study. Results indicated that responsibility ratings given to the victim varied by the presence of alcohol but not by resistance type. If the female target had been drinking, she was judged as being more responsible for the assault than if she had not been drinking. However, how she resisted the assault did not affect ratings of her responsibility. Additionally, participant gender was found to not be an important factor for attributing blame to the woman target. Future research should focus on two important factors: 1) how participants' judgments of blame may change during actual alcohol administration and 2) how the use of video, rather than written vignettes, may produce stronger effects.

Emotions and Attributions of Legal Responsibility and Blame: A Research Review.

Research on the effects of emotions and moods on judgments of legal responsibility and blame is reviewed. Emotions and moods may influence decision makers in 3 ways: by affecting their information processing strategies, by inclining their judgments in the direction of the valence of the emotion or mood, and/or by providing informational cues to the proper decision. A model is proposed that incorporates these effects and further distinguishes among various affective influences in terms of whether the affect is provoked by a source integral or incidental to the judgment task, and whether it affects judgment directly (e.g., by providing an informational cue to judgment) or indirectly (e.g., by affecting construal of judgment target features, which in turn affects the judgment). Legal decision makers' abilities to correct for any affective influences they perceive to be undesirable and normative implications for legal theory and practice are briefly discussed.

Ripple effects in memory: judgments of moral blame can distort memory for events

Can judging an individual as being morally responsible for a negative act affect memory for details of the act? We presented participants with a story describing an individual (Frank) who committed a crime (he walked out on a restaurant bill). Some participants were told that the negative act was not intentional and that Frank was essentially a good person. Others were told that the negative act was intentional and that Frank actually enjoyed it. Control participants were given no extra information. All the participants then judged Frank's moral responsibility for walking out on the bill. When asked a week later to recall information about the event, the participants who had received negative information about Frank remembered that Frank had walked out on a larger restaurant bill than he actually had. Moreover, the degree of memory distortion was predicted by the degree of moral blame that had been attributed to Frank.

The Roles of Entitativity and Essentiality in Judgments of Collective Responsibility

Two studies investigated the roles of entitativity and essentiality in judgments of collective responsibility. Analyses focused on four group types (i.e. intimacy groups, task groups, social categories, and loose associations). Repeated measures analyses revealed that intimacy groups and task groups were rated highest in entitativity while intimacy groups and social categories were rated highest in essentiality. Correlational analyses revealed that entitativity played a more central role in judgments of collective responsibility for all four group types. However, tests of interaction effects revealed that essentiality moderated the effect of entitativity on blame judgments. Implications of the role of collective responsibility in intergroup relations are discussed.

Common-Sense Virtue Ethics and Moral Luck

Moral luck poses a problem for out conception of responsibility because it highlights a tension between morality and lack of control. Michael Slote’s common-sense virtue ethics claims to avoid this problem. However there are a number of objections to this claim. Firstly, it is not clear that Slote fully appreciates the problem posed by moral luck. Secondly, Slote’s move from the moral to the ethical is problematic. Thirdly it is not clear why we should want to abandon judgements of moral blame in favour of judgements of ethical deplorability. Finally this paper defends an alternative solution to the problem of moral luck, which focuses on judgements of probability, but which has been rejected by Slote.

Polishing up the Pinto: Legal Liability, Moral Blame, and Risk

Abstract:This paper revisits the Pinto case not merely for the purpose of demythologizing the case, but as an opportunity to examine the broader issue of the logic of blame, the ascription of legal and moral responsibility. Three issues are addressed in the contexts of fault and liability in tort, criminal liability and product liability: 1) To what extent can judgments of moral wrongdoing or blame be inferred from legal judgments? 2) What are the strengths and weaknesses of attempting to model moral arguments upon legal ones? and, 3) What is the nature and role of judgments of risk evaluation in legal and moral judgments?

Effects of gender and sexuality on judgements of victim blame and rape myth acceptance in a depicted male rape

AbstractRelatively few studies have investigated judgements towards male rape, and no published studies have investigated gay men's judgements towards this offence. The current study investigated the effects of gender and sexuality on victim blame and male rape myth acceptance in the depicted rape of a gay man. It was predicted that heterosexual men would make the most anti‐victim judgements, while gay men would make the most pro‐victim judgements. One hundred and fifty members of the UK population read a scenario that depicted a male rape, and then completed a questionnaire that measured blame and rape myths. As predicted, heterosexual men endorsed more rape myths and blamed the victim more than heterosexual women or gay men. Gay men made the most pro‐victim judgements overall. Results are discussed in relation to homophobia and traditional gender roles. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Asymmetry in judgments of moral blame and praise: the role of perceived metadesires.

An important consideration in judging the blameworthiness (or praiseworthiness) of an action is whether the agent had sufficient control over it. In three experiments, we investigated judgments of moral blame and praise elicited when individuals were presented with vignettes describing actions that were performed either carefully and deliberately or impulsively and uncontrollably. Experiment 1 uncovered an asymmetry between judgments of positive versus negative actions--negative impulsive actions elicited a discounting of moral blame, but positive impulsive actions did not elicit a discounting of moral praise. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that this asymmetry arises because individuals judge agents on the basis of their metadesires (the degree to which the agents embrace or reject the impulses leading to their actions). Individuals assume that an agent would embrace an uncontrollable positive impulse, and reject an uncontrollable negative impulse.

Attributions for serious illness: Are controllability, responsibility and blame different constructs?

We examined whether judgments of controllability, responsibility, and blame are distinct and sequential psychological constructs. Undergraduates read a brief description of a male with AIDS or lung cancer and rated his controllability, responsibility, and blame in relation to the illness. Participants considered him to be more responsible than blameworthy for his illness, but more in control than responsible for becoming ill. Although measures of participants’ behavioural intentions, emotions, and social attitudes were correlated with controllability ratings, such associations were stronger for responsibility ratings and even stronger for blame ratings. Structural equation models provided additional evidence for an attributional hierarchy in which blame is the final step. Nonetheless, emotional and behavioural responses were more completely explained when attributions were considered jointly with personal and social attitudes.

The relationship between intent, consequences, the dangerousness of the victim, and blame: The case of self-defense

The way in which, in the special case of self-defense, intent to harm, consequences of the negative act and information regarding the dangerousness of the victim were integrated in a judgment of blame was studied. The sample consisted of men on the street, and also of two sub-populations directly concerned with the special issue of self-defense: police officers and prisoners. Overall, the way in which information was integrated appeared to conform to the proposed model: Blame = f [(Intent + Consequences) × Dangerousness]. The strength of the main effects and of the interactions were, however, extremely variable from one participant to another. A noticeable effect of dangerousness was observed in only onethird of the men on the street and the prisoners, and in only one police officer out of 19.

The Role of Political Ideology in Mediating Judgments of Blame in Rape Victims and their Assailants: A Test of the Just World, Personal Responsibility, and Legitimization Hypotheses

Previous research often has shown that conservative ideology is positively correlated with the extent to which people blame victims of rape. However, much of this work has been descriptive, with little attention directed toward the development of theoretical models addressing why conservatism might play an important role in this area. Three hypotheses were tested. The just world hypothesis suggests that people blame others to preserve one’s view that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The personal responsibility hypothesis suggests that conservatism is associated with a tendency to hold people personally responsible for their own actions. The legitimization hypothesis stipulates that conservative perceivers are motivated to maintain traditional power differences between dominant and nondominant groups. Two studies showed much more support for the legitimization hypothesis compared to the other hypotheses. The implications of the present results for previous investigations of victim blaming are discussed.

Reactions to penalties for an offence in relation to ethnic identity, responsibility, and authoritarianism

This study investigated the reactions of 170 student participants to a hypothetical scenario in which either an Anglo-Australian or an Asian, who either acted intentionally (high responsibility) or was duped by another (low responsibility), carried drugs into Australia and was apprehended by customs officers. Results showed that the responsibility information had strong effects on participants' judgements. Participants classified as high in right-wing authoritarianism judged the offence as more serious than low authoritarians. High authoritarians reported more positive affect about the penalty that was imposed and less justification for the offence when the perpetrator was Asian rather than Anglo-Australian. Low authoritarians showed the reverse pattern. High authoritarians also showed less discrimination between the high and low responsibility conditions when judging deservingness. Correlations between dependent variables replicated previous results and also provided new information about relations between judgements of justification, excusability, and blame.

Causal Attributions for Problematic Family Interactions

A mixed quantitative and qualitative research design compared 23 U.S. college students to 25 students from Western Samoa and 25 from American Samoa, with regard to differences in cultural beliefs and attributions. Survey responses suggested that Samoan students endorsed significantly more vertical, collective and vertical, individualistic cultural attitudes than U.S. students. Qualitative analysis of narrative responses to four vignettes depicting family conflicts suggested cultural differences in patterns of attribution of blame and responsibility for resolving the conflicts. U.S. students emphasized stable, internal, global attributions to character flaws. Samoan students emphasized more easily changed, situation-specific attributions; nonlinear, multifaceted judgments of blame; deference to hierarchy in group relationships; and context-oriented resolutions that avoid individual confrontation and emphasize preservation of relationships.

Dog Bites Boy: Judgments of Blame and Shame

ABSTRACTSeparate samples of undergraduates read matched stories about a dog or a boy actor biting a child; others read about a dog or a boy playing with a child. Rating scales were used to obtain evaluations of these outcomes, and estimates of an actor's intent, volition, and excuse for its behavior. In addition, blameworthiness and impressions of actors' felt shame were assessed for biting; as was praiseworthiness for playing. Clear evidence for more leniency and generosity toward the dog compared with the boy was obtained. For the dog, the bite outcome was evaluated as less negative; and the animal's intent, volition, blame, and felt shame were rated lower. Further, the dog was granted more excuse for biting than was the boy. Concerning play, the dog-related outcome was seen as more positive and praiseworthy. These findings are discussed in terms of attribution theory, and with reference to the issue of underreported bites from owned animals.

Police officers’ judgements of blame in family violence: The impact of gender and alcohol

This study investigated police officers‘ judgements of blame to both victims and assailants of family violence. Furthermore, the impact of these judgements on the reported likelihood of charging the assailants with assault was examined. The sample was selected from operational police officers of the Queensland Police Service. The sample included 51 male officers and 46 female officers. Ethnicity was not examined. However; 1.3% of police oficers identify as Indigenous and 5.8% of officers come from non-English speaking backgrounds. The subjects were presented with one of eight case vignettes of assault. In these vignettes two factors were varied, the victim gender (male and female), and alcohol consumption of the victim and assailant (both the assailant and the victim were drunk, neither were drunk, the assailant was sober and the victim drunk, and the assailant was drunk and the victim sober). A third independent variable was included, gender of the police officer Male and female police officers showed no differences in judgement of blame and reported likelihood of charging. However; the level of blame attributed to both the assailant and the victim vaned with the victim gender and the alcohol consumption of the disputants. Male victims were more likely to be blamed than female victims. Drunk victims were blamed more than sober victims. Furthermore,a relationship was found between the level of blame allocated to the victim and the reported likelihood of charging the assailant. These results indicate that police officers hold gender stereotypes that influence the way they respond to family violence.