Chairmen, Cocaine, and Car Crashes: The Knobe Effect as an Attribution Error

Mens rea ascription, expertise and outcome effects: Professional judges surveyed

“…Certain scholars argue that the Knobe effect constitutes a bias, and that the folk use of intentionality is frequently distorted (Adams & Steadman, 2004;Alicke, 2008;Alicke & Rose, 2010;Nadelhoffer, 2004aNadelhoffer, , 2004bNadelhoffer, , 2006Sauer & Bates, 2013). In contrast to such views, several scholars have argued that the Knobe effect testifies to people's competence in intentionality ascriptions (cf.…”

“…Adams and Steadman (2004), Nadelhoffer (2004aNadelhoffer ( , 2006; for discussion cf. Knobe (2006), Sauer and Bates (2013)) as well as more general accounts such as Alicke's (2000Alicke's ( , 2008 culpable control model, we have also measured blame ascriptions in our experiments. To the experiments we will now turn.…”

The Folk Concept of Intentional Action

“…The 'psychological' version of this approach argues that people are mistaken, and do not properly apply their concept of intentional action in the Harm case (Malle & Nelson, 2003;Pinillos et al, 2011;Sauer & Bates, 2013). A popular version of this account is the 'Blame Bias' account.…”

Unjustifiably Irresponsible: The Effects of Social Roles on Attributions of Intent

“…For example, Knobe (2003) used two vignettes about a company chairman who decides to run a profitable program that either harms or helps the environment and found that people tend to think harming the environment was more intentional than helping it. This tendency, known as the side-effect effect, can be interpreted as evidence of a bias to see harm as intentional (Alicke & Rose, 2010;Nadelhoffer, 2004Nadelhoffer, , 2006Sauer & Bates, 2013). Alternatively, we argue this tendency stems from people's competent use of social information (such as the way the chairman made their decisions in the given context), which reveals the chairman's intentions.…”