When judging purity norm violations, the perpetrator's intention matters

Abstract

Judgments about the morality of an act that harms another (an autonomy violation) depend on the perpetrator's intention, but judgments about an impure act (a purity violation) have little to do with the perpetrator's intention—or so it has been theorized. In contrast, our hypothesis, supported here in three studies of American internet users, is that the perpetrator's intention matters greatly in both domains. In two studies (N = 120 in each), the perpetrator's specific intention (benign, pernicious, or unspecified) significantly and substantially influenced moral judgments of impure acts. In a third study (N = 825) of morality judgments, intention weighed at least as much for purity as for autonomy violations: reasoning about perpetrator's intention decided whether both autonomy and purity violations were judged to be moral or immoral. In morality, intention matters.

Purity is not a distinct moral domain

“…When context is taken into account, intention plays a significant role in the judged immorality of purity violations just as it does for autonomy violations (Kupfer, Inbar, & Tybur, 2020; Parkinson & Byrne, 2018). In the purity domain, the perpetrator's intention is significant and substantial: It is used to judge whether an impure act is moral or immoral (Kollareth & Russell, 2022).…”