Judgments of Moral Responsibility and Wrongness for Intentional and Accidental Harm and Purity Violations

Abstract

Two experiments examine whether people reason differently about intentional and accidental violations in the moral domains of harm and purity, by examining moral responsibility and wrongness judgments for violations that affect others or the self. The first experiment shows that intentional violations are judged to be worse than accidental ones, regardless of whether they are harm or purity violations-for example, Sam poisons his colleague versus Sam eats his dog, when participants judge how morally responsible was Sam for what he did, or how morally wrong was what Sam did. The second experiment shows that violations of others are judged to be worse than violations of the self, regardless of whether they are harm or purity violations, when their content and context is matched-for example, on a tropical holiday Sam orders poisonous starfruit for dinner for his friend, or for himself, versus on a tropical holiday Sam orders dog meat for dinner for his friend, or for himself. Moral reasoning is influenced by whether the violation was intentional or accidental, and whether its target was the self or another person, rather than by the moral domain, such as harm or purity.

Moral fatigue: The effects of cognitive fatigue on moral reasoning

“…Moreover, individual differences in abilities such as working memory capacity, as well as in general cognitive style, also influence moral judgements (e.g., Bartels, 2008; Bartels & Pizarro, 2011; Moore et al, 2008), as does the presentation of multiple alternatives simultaneously rather than sequentially (Paharia et al, 2009; see also Lombrozo, 2009). The results thus corroborate suggestions that reasoning about moral matters relies on the same cognitive processes as reasoning about non-moral matters (e.g., Białek & De Neys, 2017; Bucciarelli & Johnson-Laird, 2005; Gubbins & Byrne, 2014; Parkinson & Byrne, 2018; Wiegmann & Osman, 2017), such as the construction of a model that causally links the action to the outcome (e.g., Crockett, 2013; Cushman, 2013; Lagnado et al, 2013). Overall, the experiments reported here indicate that people reason differently about moral problems after they have completed cognitively exhausting tasks.…”

Spillover effects of information leakages in buyer–supplier–supplier triads

“…Although we expect to find overall decreases in the OBSERVER's willingness to share information upon learning of an information leakage within the network, we expect the magnitude to differ depending on the attribution of the OFFENDER's intentionality. Indeed, psychological research at the interpersonal level suggests that intentional violations cause observers to assign greater responsibility to the OFFENDER , and they trigger more negative and harsher moral judgments by others than similar unintentional events (Guglielmo & Malle, 2010; Parkinson & Byrne, 2018). Researchers have long acknowledged that employees' behaviors are frequently perceived as representative of the entire organization to outsiders—for example, when it comes to brand impressions after a single employee's actions (Wentzel, 2009).…”

Beyond harmfulness and impurity: Moral wrongness as a violation of relational motivations.

“…In addition to investigating the functional basis of perceptions of moral wrongness, we examine its severity. The severity of perceived moral wrongness has been linked to the intensity of emotions (see Molho, Tybur, Güler, Balliet, & Hofmann, 2017; Pizarro, 2000; Prinz, 2006; Rozin et al, 1999; Wagemans et al, 2018), intentionality (Cushman, 2008; Parkinson & Byrne, 2018; Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011a; Young & Saxe, 2011), moral agency (Gray & Wegner, 2011b), social pressure (Woolfolk, Doris, & Darley, 2006), and moral ethics (Tepe, Cesur, & Sunar, 2017). In line with RRT and Rai and Fiske’s (2012) metarelational approach to (im)moral action, we also suggest that the immorality of an act is not assessed solely with reference to an individual or situation, but that behaviors are evaluated within a community-oriented framework that considers potential implications for future relationships.…”

“…The pluralist perspective is mostly highlighted by the Moral Foundation Theory (MFT), which suggests that there are five foundations of morality including harmfulness and impurity, and that the perception of morality varies across cultures and individuals (Graham et al, 2011(Graham et al, , 2013. The addition of the concept of impurity is particularly meaningful in the study of morality (e.g., Chakroff & Young, 2015;Dungan, Chakroff, & Young, 2017;Giner-Sorolla & Chapman, 2016;Horberg, Oveis, Keltner, & Cohen, 2009;Parkinson & Byrne, 2018;Rottman, Kelemen, & Young, 2014;Sabo & Giner-Sorolla, 2017;Vezzali, Brambilla, Giovannini, & Paolo Colucci, 2017;Wagemans, Brandt, & Zeelenberg, 2018;Young & Saxe, 2011) and helps show that various perceptual processes underlie moral judgments. For example, individuals have been shown to be less sensitive to context and the intent of the actor when condemning impure acts than when condemning harmful acts (Chakroff, Dungan, & Young, 2013;Cushman, 2008;Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011a;Sousa, Holbrook, & Piazza, 2009;Young & Saxe, 2011).…”

“…In particular, transgressions that are committed intentionally rather than accidentally were perceived as metarelationally more threatening, because intentional acts are more likely to reoccur, which constitutes a problem in terms of relationship regulation (see also Rai & Fiske, 2012). Previous research has also pointed to a link between intentionality and moral wrongness (Cushman, 2008;Parkinson & Byrne, 2018;Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2011a;Young & Saxe, 2011). Perceived metarelational threat might offer another explanation for why intentional acts are perceived as more morally wrong than unintentional acts.…”