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Article history:
Received 31 May 2014
Revised 11 April 2015
Accepted 28 April 2015
Available online 30 April 2015
Keywords:
Knowledge
Desire
Blame
Mental states
Negligence
Morality
Moral psychology
a b s t r a c t
Two experiments (Experiment 1 N = 350; Experiment 2 N = 153), used relatively simple (Experiment 1) and
complex (Experiment 2) vignettes to investigate whether two ostensibly distinct mental states that underlie intentionality judgments inuence each other, related mental states, and agent morality, and also whether they affect blame through different routes. Knowledge (that a particular action can lead to a particular outcome)
affected perceptions of an agent's desire by rst increasing blame, which increased perceptions that the agent
was aware of acting, while acting. Desire (for a particular outcome) affected blame and perceptions of agent
knowledge by increasing perceptions that the agents were immoral (measured after knowledge and desire
were described, but before the agents' action and the harmful outcomes were described), which inuenced perceptions of the agents' awareness. The importance of these ndings for mental state perception research, including the relationship of mental states to blame, is discussed.
2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Understanding others' mental states is a vitally important aspect of
human social interactions. Not only does perception of others' mental
states aid in understanding their motives, actions, and character
(e.g., Reeder, 2009a, 2009b), it helps perceivers select appropriate responses to what others say and do. For example, knowing that someone
wishes you harm, you may choose to avoid or confront that person. Surmising that a friend is blue, you might console or offer help. Simply put,
understanding of or beliefs about the contents of others' minds shapes
perceivers' reactions to and behavior toward them (Malle & Hodges,
2005).
Understanding mental states is particularly important when trying
to evaluate how blameworthy an agent is for bringing about a harmful
Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, 1227
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
E-mail addresses: slaurent@uoregon.edu, seanmlaurent@gmail.com (S.M. Laurent).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.009
0022-1031/ 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
28
acting, and thus possessed knowledge linking their action to the outcome, validating the impulse to blame.
2.1. The role of knowledge (and awareness) in blame
Depending on interpretation, knowledge is often loosely equated
with foresight and dened as a belief that one's action will have a particular consequence (e.g., Malle & Knobe, 1997; Shaver, 1985). This denition appears to imply either a present-moment action or an intention to
act and bring about a desired outcome. However, knowledge can also be
conceptualized more abstractly as a simple understanding of potential
causal relations between actions and outcomes. That is, to know that
one's action will have a particular consequence, one must rst know
that certain types of actions or classes of actions have the potential to
bring about certain types of outcomes or classes of outcomes. Using
this denition, knowledge informs subjective foreseeability (Lagnado
& Channon, 2008) at a basic level (i.e., whether an agent could plausibly
foresee or have foreseen the consequences of an action); however, it does
not imply that any action has been or will be taken or that any outcome
has occurred or will occur. That is, although most people know that certain actions can cause harm, their possession of knowledge does not
imply their performance of these actions or plans to perform them.
Whether a person should reasonably foresee or should have foreseen the potential for harm (e.g., reasonable foreseeability; Lagnado &
Channon, 2008) can be shown to depend on the type of knowledge
being considered, as well as on the person's level of awareness of
performing a particular action linked to that knowledge. General or
common knowledge subsumes knowledge that most people possess
or are reasonably expected to possess. For example, a person who
hates guns, has never red one, and intends never to do so probably
knows (and would be reasonably expected to know) that pulling the
trigger on a pistol, when the pistol is loaded and aimed at someone,
will probably lead to the person being injured or killed. In addition to
common knowledge, some knowledge is privileged or specialized, in
that not all people would be expected to possess it, diminishing reasonable expectation for some people but increasing it for others. For
example, while a friend of Person P might know that P is allergic to
strawberries, and would therefore have knowledge regarding the effect
of feeding P strawberries, not all people would be expected to have this
knowledge.
Although knowledge in this sense is not noteworthy, it strongly
suggests the presence of foresight when combined with awareness
of performing the action one knows is linked to the possibility of
harm. However, awareness itself is a complex mental state, because
actions themselves can be construed or identied at different levels
(e.g., Vallacher & Wegner, 2012), and agents may or may not be aware
of the full scope of their actions. Continuing with the gun example, a person might pull the trigger on a gun they think is unloaded and end up
harming someone because a bullet was in the chamber. In this case, the
agent may have awareness while acting of pulling a trigger on a gun,
but not of pulling the trigger on a loaded gun, so no foresight should be
attributed. However, it could be argued that the agent should have been
aware of the full scope of his action (i.e., he should have taken care that
the gun was not loaded before pulling the trigger if there was no intent
to harm). Similarly, P's friend might be aware of innocently offering her
a sip of juice purchased at a health store without being aware that the
juice contains strawberries. But if the friend is aware the juice contains
strawberries, and knowledge is also present, her awareness of acting
suggests foresight and perhaps the intent to harm. Thus, only when
knowledge is combined with full awareness should foresight be rationally
and fully attributed. Following this line of reasoning, expectations for foreseeability can arise not only from expectations for knowledge when
awareness is present (e.g., that ring guns can cause harm or that P is allergic to strawberries), but also from expectations for awareness when
knowledge is present (e.g., that one is pulling the trigger on a loaded
gun or that one is offering a drink containing strawberries).
29
rationally foreseen the potential for harm in his action. The full scenarios
for both experiments are available in Appendix A.
In both experiments, to provide a strong causal test of the desire to
immorality to blame (and other mental states) hypothesis, participants
were rst presented with information detailing the agents' mental
states (i.e., manipulations of desire and knowledge). At this point,
moral judgments were assessed. Following this, the agents' actions
were described along with the harmful outcomes. Last, we collected
data on the remaining dependent variables.
3. Experiment 1
3.1. Method
3.1.1. Participants
Two samples were collected. The rst was 160 U.S. citizens aged 18
or above, recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk website and
paid $0.20 (69% male, MAge = 29.01, SD = 9.72, range = 1867). The
second was 201 undergraduate students (32.8% male, MAge = 19.80,
SD = 2.27) who participated in partial fulllment of course requirements. After deleting cases for multiple responding or incorrect responses to a simple (arithmetic) attention check question (6.9% of the
Internet sample only), the nal sample was N = 350.
3.1.2. Procedure
After providing consent, participants read a short vignette (Nuez
et al., 2014; see Appendix A). In it, Annie invites Julia to dinner.
Annie is described as behind on time as she hastily prepares fried chicken using cooking oil containing a small amount of peanut oil. However,
Annie never read the label, so she lacks awareness of the full scope of
her action (i.e., she is not aware, while using the oil, of the oil's composition). Julia, who is severely allergic to peanuts, gets very sick after eating the chicken. The crossed manipulation of knowledge and desire
(described below) came rst, followed by questions about Annie's immorality. Participants then read about Annie's action (cooking the
chicken in the oil) and the outcome (the friend getting ill) before
responding to the remaining dependent variables. Last, participants answered an attention check question and provided basic demographic
information.
30
Initially, sample (Internet vs. undergraduate) was included as a factor in all analyses.
No main effects involving sample emerged, but one interaction between sample and
knowledge was found (on awareness, p = .02) that did not affect interpretation of knowledge (i.e., the effect of knowledge on awareness was larger in the undergraduate sample
than in the Internet sample).
4.2. Path analyses: the effects of knowledge on blame, awareness, and desire
Path analyses with bootstrapping (5000 replications; N = 350) were
used to examine mediation hypotheses. The rst model examined
whether the manipulation of knowledge would predict awareness
through blame. Direct paths were estimated from the manipulation of
knowledge to blame and awareness and from blame to awareness.
Direct paths from knowledge to blame and from blame to awareness
were signicant, as was the indirect path (ps b .001). The path from
the knowledge manipulation to awareness was not signicant (p =
.62). Removing this nonsignicant path left a model with good t and
where all paths were signicant (2(1) = 0.24, p = .63, RMSEA =
0.00; ps b .001; see Fig. 1, top, which also provides all direct and indirect
path coefcients, R2 for all variables, and bias-corrected 95% condence
intervals). When the causal order of awareness and blame (i.e., where
awareness predicts blame) were reversed, knowledge signicantly
predicted awareness (p b .001), and awareness signicantly predicted
blame (p b .001), but knowledge continued to directly predict blame
(p b .001). The indirect effect of knowledge on blame was also signicant (p b .001). Removing the direct path from knowledge to blame
left a model that did not t the data well, 2(1) = 89.62, p b .001,
RMSEA = .50. Thus, although a model that reversed causality was
also plausible, making the temporal ordering between blame and
awareness difcult to determine, the most parsimonious model
was one where knowledge worked through blame to affect perceptions of awareness. This suggests that participants used information
about knowledge to assign blame and then used their blame judgments to adjust their perception of the agent's awareness rather
than the reverse, which is consistent with Alicke's (2000) blamevalidation hypothesis. However, it is also possible that knowledge affected perceptions of awareness, which then inuenced blame, but
that knowledge continued to exert an inuence on blame through
another unmeasured variable. A third possibility is that knowledge
affects attributions of blame and judgments regarding awareness essentially simultaneously.
Next, we examined whether the knowledge manipulation affected
perceived desire in a similar way. Based on the ndings from our rst
model, we estimated a model where the knowledge manipulation directly predicted blame, blame predicted awareness, and awareness predicted desire. This model t the data reasonably well (2(3) = 5.21,
p = .16, RMSEA = .046) and all direct and indirect paths were signicant (ps b .001). Adding direct paths from blame to desire (p = .66)
or from knowledge to desire (p = .09) did not signicantly improve
model t (change 2(2) = 4.97, p = .08), suggesting the adequacy of
the model (see Fig. 2, top).
In sum, our predictions about knowledge were generally supported.
Knowledge affected perceptions of awareness by rst inuencing
blame. However, a model that reversed the direction of awareness and
blame was also plausible, so further evidence (or additional types of evidence) might be needed to draw strong causal conclusions. Given that
the rst model was more parsimonious (i.e., fewer direct paths were
estimated), it might be preferred, but in either case, the blame validation hypothesis received support, in that awareness was affected by
knowledge when it should not rationally have been. Similarly, knowledge affected desire by the same route. This is particularly interesting
because it brackets the other side of the action/outcome link underlying
knowledge. That is, knowledge concerning an action/outcome combination biases perceptions of both the agent's awareness of acting as well
their desire to see the outcome occur, which makes attributions of
blame seem exceptionally likely.
4.3. Path analyses: the effects of desire on immorality, awareness, blame,
and knowledge
Next, we examined whether the desire manipulation, through perception of the agent's immorality, affected perceptions of blame and
31
Table 1
M, SD, and effect sizes of all measured variables in Experiment 1 as a function of manipulated knowledge and desire, and correlations among the measured variables.
Main effects
1. Knowledge
2. Desire
3. Awareness
4. Immorality
5. Blame
No knowledge
Knowledge
M (SD)
M (SD)
2.06 (2.06)
4.45 (3.46)
1.91 (1.53)
4.22 (2.46)
3.90 (2.31)
9.48 (1.31)
4.14 (3.59)
2.65 (2.23)
4.19 (2.87)
6.44 (2.06)
b.001
.55
b.001
.085
b.001
No
desire
Desire
M (SD)
M (SD)
4.30
0.09
0.38
0.01
1.16
6.02 (4.10)
1.52 (1.22)
1.91 (1.53)
2.30 (1.38)
4.95 (2.41)
5.65 (4.09)
7.73 (2.16)
2.77 (2.30)
6.57 (1.89)
5.51 (2.65)
.49
b.001
b.001
b.001
.002
0.12
3.54
0.44
2.58
0.22
Correlations
1.
2.
3.
4.
1. Knowledge
2. Desire
3. Awareness
4. Immorality
5. Blame
.05
.25
.01
.55
.22
.82
.12
.28
.42
.19
3
Testing models where other measured variables predicted immorality did not make
sense because immorality was deliberately measured before perceivers knew about the
agent's action and the harmful outcome, and remaining variables were measured after
providing this information. Furthermore, we were particularly interested in whether judgments of moral character arising solely from desire (described prior to any action/outcome
sequence) would predict subsequent variables.
4
The marginally signicant increase in model t was likely due to a signicant direct
path in this model between immorality and perceived knowledge (p = .01). However,
the negative coefcient of this path is difcult to interpret, suggesting either a suppression
effect from an unmeasured variable or that some aspect of knowledge unrelated to blame
was inversely predictable by immorality.
outcome by acting, claims of not being aware of acting may lack credence, suggesting blame is appropriate. However, it is notable that the
rst model tested (i.e., where immorality predicted blame, which then
predicted awareness) also t the data, even if in this model, judgments
of awareness were not fully mediated by blame. Again, in either case,
the important conclusion to be drawn is that simply desiring an outcome, regardless of whether knowledge is present or absent, affects
blame and biases judgments of an agent's awareness. Furthermore, it
is very interesting that working through immorality, desire biases judgments of an agent's knowledge. This shows the potency of desire as a
motivating factor in blame, because simply wanting an outcome to
occur should not rationally have any effect on judgments that the
agent possesses specic knowledge about how an action could bring
about a desired outcome, particularly when this knowledge is specialized or privileged (e.g., when a person has a severe food allergy but
has not provided this information to their dinner host). Most likely,
this nding represents what Alicke (2000) called an indirect spontaneous evaluation effect. That is, when participants were presented with information about the agent's actions and the outcome, they used their
prior evaluations of the agent's character to seek information in the
agent's mental states that would support the urge to blame her.
5. Experiment 2
In Experiment 1, we used a scenario that allowed us to clearly establish the effects of interest, providing support for our central arguments.
However, there were a few elements of this experiment that represent
potential limitations. First and perhaps most importantly, the information
provided to participants was simplied and descriptively straightforward.
In the longest version of the vignette, 78 words in four sentences
established the presence or absence of knowledge and awareness, with
only one sentence establishing the background (i.e., that Annie invited a
friend over for dinner). Similarly, description of the action and outcome
was accomplished by using an additional 66 words in three sentences. Although adequate to describe the agent's mental states, the action, and the
outcome, this very short scenario probably does not realistically portray
the complexity of context in which social agents' thoughts, feelings, and
actions reside. A second potential limitation of this scenario is that the
agent (Annie), when knowledge was present, was probably (and justiably) seen as having failed to take reasonable precautions to not harm
her friend. Knowing that a friend has a severe allergy to peanuts and
could become very sick if exposed to them, it is reasonable to expect
that a dinner host would take the time to read the label on the oil she
uses to prepare dinner, particularly when this could mean the difference
between causing great harm and not doing so. However, we should
32
Fig. 1. Effects of manipulated knowledge (top) and manipulated desire (bottom) on blame and awareness in Experiment 1. Note: Unstandardized coefcients are provided along with
[bias-corrected] 95% CIs. All direct and indirect effects were signicant in top and bottom panels (ps b .001). All measured variables were on 10-point scales. Top panel: indirect effect:
K B A (.82 [.58, 1.11]). R2: B = .25, A = .17. Bottom panel: model t was good (2(3) = 3.74, p = .32, RMSEA = .02, p-close = .64). Indirect effects: D I A (.88 [.53, 1.28]);
I A B (.11 [.06, .17]); and D I A B (.47 [.26, .74]). R2: I = .63, A = .08, and B = .17.
note that even if blame seems reasonable, shifted perceptions of awareness and desire seem less so. Finally, in Experiment 1, the harm that
was caused by the agent's actions was physical and fairly severe, making
it unclear whether the effects we found would generalize to less severe
harm or other types of harm (e.g., emotional harm).
Experiment 2 was created to address these issues and replicate the
ndings from Experiment 1 to give them greater generalizability. In
this scenario, details regarding the agent's knowledge and desire were
presented in a more realistic, complex way, and intermixed with other
information that was unrelated to the agent's mental states. In the
longest version of the vignette, 444 words in 20 sentences presented a
complex and contextualized description of the agent's knowledge and
desire. Similarly, the description of the action/outcome sequence that
followed measurement of moral character used 219 words in 16
sentences and contained contextualized establishing details and extraneous information. Importantly, in all versions, the possibility for the
agent to be aware of the scope of his action was limited because the
agent's knowledge was only general (i.e., that a housemate's girlfriend
was jealous of the housemate's relationship with an ex-girlfriend),
and full awareness would require privileged knowledge that was absent
(i.e., the agent did not know who the ex-girlfriend was). Last, the harm
that the agent's action precipitated was not physical, but emotional
(i.e., the girlfriend breaks up with the housemate, upsetting him).
Predictions were generally the same as in the rst experiment, although informed by ndings from it. In addition, we thought it possible
that the manipulations of desire and knowledge would not have as
strong total effects as in Experiment 1, because a) we deliberately limited the ability of the agent to be aware of the scope of his action, b) we
included many additional details that might draw focus away from the
primary manipulations, c) the harm was more difcult to quantify,
and d) other factors may have played as strong or stronger causal
roles in the ultimate outcome (e.g., the girlfriend might have broken
up with the housemate even if the agent did nothing). However, we
still expected to nd mediated effects similar to those in Experiment
1. That is, we expected that desire would strongly affect perceptions of
immorality, which would subsequently predict awareness, blame, and
(indirectly) knowledge. Similarly, at least to the extent that participants
attended to the details of the knowledge manipulation or were able to
parse them out of the background information (indexed by the measure
of perceived knowledge), we expected knowledge to subsequently affect attributions of blame and perceptions of knowledge and desire.
Using a scenario such as this one allowed for a particularly strong test
of our predictions.
5.1. Method
5.1.1. Participants
Participants were 172 U.S. citizens aged 18 or above, recruited
through Amazon's Mechanical Turk website and paid $0.20. After deleting cases because of non-US citizenship or incorrect responses to a simple (arithmetic) attention check question (11%), the nal sample was
N = 153 (41.2% male, MAge = 35.55, SD = 12.64, range = 1973).
5.1.2. Procedure
The experimental design of Experiment 2 was identical to that of
Experiment 1. After providing consent, participants read a short vignette about the agent Adam, his housemate Ben, Ben's current girlfriend Heidi, and Ben's ex-girlfriend Samantha. Information relevant
to the agent's knowledge and desire was presented rst, followed by assessment of moral character, a description of the agent's action and the
negative outcome, collection of the remaining dependent variables, an
arithmetic attention check question, and demographics.
Fig. 2. Effects of manipulated knowledge on perceived desire (top) and of manipulated desire on perceived knowledge (bottom) in Experiment 1. Note: Unstandardized coefcients are
provided along with [bias-corrected] 95% CIs. All direct and indirect effects were signicant in top and bottom panels (ps b .001). All measured variables were on 10-point scales. Top panel:
model t was good (2(3) = 5.21, p = .16, RMSEA = .046, p-close = .45). Indirect effects: K B A (.82 [.58, 1.11]); B A PD (.13 [.07, .20]); and K B A PD (.33 [.17, .54]). R2:
B = .25, A = .17, and PD = .05. Bottom panel: model t was good (2(6) = 10.52, p = .10, RMSEA = .046, p-close = .49). Indirect effects: D I A (.88 [.53, 1.28]); D I A B (.47 [.26,
.74]); D I A B PK (.42 [.23, .67]); I A B (.11 [.06, .17]); I A B PK (.10 [.05, .15]); and A B K (.48 [.36, .60]). R2: I = .63, A = .08, and B = .17, PK = .30.
33
34
Table 2
M, SD, and effect sizes of all measured variables in Experiment 2 as a function of manipulated knowledge and desire, and correlations among the measured variables.
Main effects
1. Knowledge
2. Desire
3. Awareness
4. Immorality
5. Blame
No knowledge
Knowledge
M (SD)
M (SD)
3.01 (2.65)
4.59 (3.11)
4.01 (3.10)
3.95 (1.83)
3.56 (2.47)
5.97 (3.00)
4.99 (3.27)
3.90 (2.88)
3.72 (1.86)
3.70 (2.48)
b.001
.40
.75
.27
.76
No
desire
Desire
M (SD)
M (SD)
1.05
0.13
0.03
0.12
0.06
4.11 (3.07)
2.74 (2.29)
3.67 (2.89)
3.05 (1.66)
3.32 (2.17)
5.28 (3.26)
7.33 (2.16)
4.30 (3.06)
4.77 (1.61)
4.02 (2.76)
.02
b.001
.17
b.001
.085
0.37
2.06
0.21
1.05
0.28
Correlations
1.
2.
3.
4.
1. Knowledge
2. Desire
3. Awareness
4. Immorality
5. Blame
.37
.44
.27
.43
.31
.58
.38
.42
.59
.39
of the variables described above moderate the temporal order. Still, despite some uncertainty about the exact ordering of each variable in the
causal chain, a rmer conclusion can be drawn that even when awareness of acting (or of the scope of an action) is reasonably absent, knowledge inuences perception of awareness and desire and inuences
attributions of blame.
6.1.2. Path analyses: the effects of desire on immorality, awareness, blame,
and knowledge
Next, we estimated a model using desire that replicated our initial
model in Experiment 1. Manipulated desire was used to directly predict
immorality, blame, and awareness; immorality was used to directly predict blame and awareness; and blame was used to directly predict
awareness. As in Experiment 1, direct paths from desire to awareness
and blame were not signicant and were removed, leaving a model
that t the data well (2(2) = 1.88, p = .39, RMSEA = .00; all paths signicant at p .009). However, as in Experiment 1, immorality continued to directly predict awareness, again suggesting that the effect of
immorality on awareness was not fully mediated by blame. Replicating
the nding from Experiment 1, after switching the causal order of these
paths (i.e., using awareness to predict blame rather than the reverse)
the path from immorality to blame was not signicant (although it
was marginally signicant, p = .06) and all other paths were signicant
(ps .001; one exception was the indirect path from desire to blame
through immorality, p = .05), again suggesting a slight preference for
this model. However, it should be noted that removing the marginally
signicant path from immorality to blame signicantly reduced the t
of the model (change 2(1) = 5.26, p = .02).
Last, we used this model as a starting point and added to it perceived
knowledge, predicted by blame and awareness. This model had good t
(2(4) = 4.58, p = .33, RMSEA = .03) and with the exception of the direct path from immorality to blame (p = .06), all direct and indirect
paths were signicant (ps .05). Adding in direct paths from the desire
manipulation and immorality to knowledge did not improve t of the
model (change 2(2) = 2.69, p = .26).
For desire, results were somewhat more straightforward and replicated Experiment 1. Specically, judgments that the agent was immoral,
even when measured before any action/outcome sequence was described, and even when ratings were not exceptionally high, fully mediated the effects of a manipulation of desire on judgments of blame and
perceived awareness. Furthermore, blame attributions and perceptions
of awareness fully mediated the effects of immorality and desire on perceived knowledge. This provides strong evidence that across situations,
complexity of information, and type and severity of harm, desire inuences blaming in what might be called an irrational manner. That is,
when an agent simply wants some outcome to occur and the outcome
35
Fig. 3. Effects of perceived knowledge (top) and manipulated desire (bottom) on blame and awareness in Experiment 2. Note: Unstandardized coefcients are provided along with [biascorrected] 95% CIs. Top panel: indirect effect: PK B A (.20 [.11, .32])**. R2: B = .19, A = .39. Bottom panel: model t was good (2(2) = 1.88, p = .39, RMSEA = .00, p-close = .52).
Indirect effects: D I A (1.16 [.70, 1.74])**; D I B (.38 [.01, .84])*; D I A B (.50 [.26, .88])**; and I A B (.29 [.15, .49])**. R2: I = .22, A = .18, and B = .37. *p .05,
**p .001.
Fig. 4. Effects of perceived knowledge on perceived desire (top) and of manipulated desire on perceived knowledge (bottom) in Experiment 2. Note: Unstandardized coefcients are provided along with [bias-corrected] 95% CIs. Top panel: indirect effect: PK B PD (.11 [.04, .23])*. R2: B = .19, PD = .20. Bottom panel: model t was good (2(4) = 4.58, p = .33,
RMSEA = .03, p-close = .52). Indirect effects: D I A (1.16 [.70, 1.74])**; D I B (.38 [ .01, .84])*; D I A B (.50 [.26, .88])**; D I A PK (.35 [.10, .77])*;
D I B PK (.13 [.004, .43])*; D I A B PK (.17 [.05, .41])*; I A B (.29 [.15, .49])**; I A PK (.21 [.06, .42])*; I B PK (.08 [.001, .24])*; I A B PK
(.10 [.03, .24])*; and A B PK (.15 [.04, .30])*. R2: I = .22, A = .18; B = .37; and PK = .24. *p .05, **p .001.
36
occurs, perceivers blame the agent, think the agent was aware of acting
in a way that would bring the harm about, and think the agent possessed privileged knowledge about how an action could lead to harm.
This is fully consistent with Alicke's (2000) spontaneous evaluation
hypothesis and helps explain why Cushman (2008) found that desire
contributes to judgments of wrongness/impermissibility and blame/
punishment.
Finally, it highlights the rich complexity that underlies perceivers' reasoning about blame, and should provoke further thinking about the
topic, generating new research that investigates the ways that mental
states work both independently and together to inuence attributions
of blame.
9. Conclusion
Because attempts to infer others' mental states arguably underlie all
social interactions, understanding how different mental states differentially lead to blame should help move the eld forward in important
new directions, as should uncovering the complex relationships that
may exist between seemingly unrelated mental states. Beliefs regarding
the contents of others' minds shape our reactions to and behavior toward them (Malle & Hodges, 2005), particularly when others' actions
cause harm (Alicke, 2000). Understanding the relationships of these
mental states to blame and to each other is therefore a priority, and
this work represents an initial step in clarifying these relationships.
37
to introduce some friends to him, in hopes that Adam will hit if off
with one of them, so they can all do things together.
Desire absent
Adam also likes Ben a lot, and because he enjoys Heidi's company,
doesn't mind that she is over so often. Even though Adam is not at all
attracted to Heidi, or romantically interested in her, he sometimes
gets a little jealous of Ben's relationship with her because he is single
and wishes he also had a girlfriend. He jokes around with the both of
them that Heidi needs to get to work in nding him a girlfriend! Even
though he feels jealous sometimes, he would never do anything to
hurt Ben or try to damage Ben's relationship with Heidi.
Desire present
Although Ben does not know it, Adam secretly resents him. Adam
hides it well, but feels this way because of his jealousy about Ben's relationship with Heidi. Adam is strongly attracted to Heidi and thinks they
would make a better couple than her and Ben. He fantasizes about her
often, and secretly wishes he could do something to break the two of
them up, because he thinks he could easily win her over if only given
the chance. However, despite his feelings, Adam would never act on
his desire; the shame would be too great. Moreover, Adam knows that
the only way he could be happy with Heidi was if she left Ben on her
own.
Knowledge absent
Heidi is very jealous of Ben's continuing relationship with an exgirlfriend, Samantha, but Adam does not know about this. Even though
Ben has mentioned to Adam that he has a friend named Samantha,
Adam has no idea that Samantha is his ex-girlfriend, and furthermore,
he does not know that Ben's friendship with Samantha is an issue for
Heidi. This is because Ben has never mentioned the issue to him and because Ben and Heidi have never brought up the topic or Samantha's
name when Adam was around. Ben reasons that his former relationship
with Samantha is irrelevant and no one's business, because they are not
romantically or physically involved in any way anymore, and neither of
them are interested in this type of relationship. Ben simply thinks of her
as a friend, someone he still likes and who can count on him.
Knowledge present
Adam knows that Heidi is very jealous of Ben's continuing relationship with an ex-girlfriend, because Ben mentioned the issue in passing
one afternoon a few months ago when they were talking about relationships. However, despite Adam's knowledge of the issue, and even
though Ben has talked about having a friend named Samantha, Adam
has absolutely no clue that Samantha is the ex-girlfriend Heidi dislikes,
because Ben has never mentioned her name to Adam in the context of
having dated her in the past. Moreover, Ben and Heidi have never
brought up the topic or Samantha's name when Adam was around, so
he has no way of knowing that Samantha is the ex-girlfriend. Ben reasons that his former relationship with Samantha is irrelevant and no
one's business, because they are not romantically or physically involved
in any way anymore, and neither of them are interested in this type of
relationship. Ben simply thinks of her as a friend, someone he still
likes and who can count on him.
(Measurement of moral character.)
Action and outcome (same in all conditions)
Recently, Samantha called Ben in the evening, asking him to come
over to discuss a pressing personal problem regarding her boyfriend.
Adam was out of the house at the time, so to be polite, Ben left a note
for him: Had to go to Samantha's to help her out with a boyfriend
emergency. I might be back late, so if you're not up, I'll see you in the
morning.
When Adam got home somewhat late, Ben was still gone. Once inside, he read the note and thought nothing of it. About fteen minutes
38
after he got in, the phone rang. Heidi was the caller, and she asked if Ben
was back yet, claiming that she had stopped by earlier and Ben was not
around. She sounded somewhat concerned. Adam mentioned the note,
saying, He's not here, but he left a note. I guess he's still at Samantha's
helping her with her love crisis. He said he wouldn't be in until late or
the morning.
After a moment of silence, Heidi said OK, thanks, and hung up.
Soon after, Adam went to sleep.
The next day, Ben told Adam that Heidi had broken up with him. Ben
was devastated and distraught. He explained that Heidi had shown up
at Samantha's house and confronted him, which led to a ght and the
breakup.
(Measurement of remaining dependent variables, attention check
question, and demographics.)
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