The folk strike back; or, why you didn’t do it intentionally, though it was bad and you knew it

Phelan, Mark; Sarkissian, Hagop

doi:10.1007/s11098-006-9047-y

Cited by 55 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This interpretation fits with two aspects of the current results: (1) the timing of the effect of fairness in the RTPJ, which emerged only after moral judgment and (2) the correlation between the magnitude of the effect in the RTPJ and the earlier investment during the Game. Both the S-E-E and the current fMRI results may therefore suggest a common psychological mechanism for post hoc blame justification (Nadelhoffer, 2004a(Nadelhoffer, , 2004bPhelan & Sarkissian, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…We hypothesized that one key source of such information would be the observer's impressions of the actor's prior record, based on personal experience and/or knowledge of the actor's offense history (Nadelhoffer, 2004a(Nadelhoffer, , 2004bPhelan & Sarkissian, 2008;Pizarro et al, 2006;Woolfolk et al, 2006). The behavioural results of the current experiment support this hypothesis.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

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The influence of prior record on moral judgment

et al. 2008

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Repeat offenders are commonly given more severe sentences than first-time offenders for the same violations. Though this practice makes intuitive sense, the theory behind escalating penalties is disputed in both legal and economic theories. Here we investigate folk intuitions concerning the moral and intentional status of actions performed by people with positive versus negative prior records. We hypothesized that prior record would modulate both moral judgment and mental state reasoning. Subjects first engaged in an economic game with fair (positive prior record) and unfair (negative prior record) competitors and then read descriptions of their competitors' actions that resulted in either positive or negative outcomes. The descriptions left the competitors' mental states unstated. We found that subjects judged actions producing negative outcomes as more "intentional" and more "blameworthy" when performed by unfair competitors. Although explicit mental state evaluation was not required, moral judgments in this case were accompanied by increased activation in brain regions associated with mental state reasoning, including predominantly the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ). The magnitude of RTPJ activation was correlated with individual subjects' behavioural responses to unfair play in the game. These results thus provide insight for both legal theory and moral psychology.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

The influence of prior record on moral judgment

et al. 2008

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“…Presumably, the restructuring plan will lead to a long-term increase in profits. Indeed, when Phelan and Sarkissian (2008) that decreasing sales was bad, 94.5% of participants indicated that Susan deserved neither praise nor blame, and only 14% thought that decreasing sales was bad. These data contrast sharply with the praise and blame ratings obtained by Knobe (2003a) for ENVIRONMENT.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Knobe Effect for Belief Ascriptions

Beebe

2013

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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found that people are more likely to attribute intentionality to agents whose actions resulted in negative side-effects that to agents whose actions resulted in positive ones. Subsequent investigation has extended this result to a variety of other folk psychological attributions. The present article reports experimental findings that demonstrate an analogous effect for belief ascriptions. Participants were found to be more likely to ascribe belief, higher degrees of belief, higher degrees of rational belief, and dispositional belief to agents in central Knobe effect cases who bring about negative side-effects than to agents who bring about positive ones. These findings present a significant challenge to widely held views about the Knobe effect, since many explanations of it assume that agents in contrasting pairs of Knobe effect cases do not differ with respect to their beliefs. Participants were also found to be more confident that knowledge should be attributed than they were that belief or dispositional belief should be attributed. This finding strengthens the challenge that Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel (forthcoming) have launched against the traditional view that knowledge entails belief. keywords: Knobe effect, experimental philosophy, belief ascription, folk psychology * Thanks to

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“…Very few studies have examined neutral outcomes in assessments of the side-effect effect (Knobe and Mendlow, 2004;Phelan and Sarkissian, 2008). Outcomes in the present study that were considered neutral were that the target individual in the story would fall asleep, tap her foot, or see a frog for the first time.…”

Section: Responses To Neutral Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 96%