Judging accidental harm: Reasoning style modulates the weight of intention and harm severity

Abstract

When judging a perpetrator who harmed someone accidentally, humans rely on distinct information pertaining to the perpetrator and victim. The present study investigates how reasoning style modulates the contribution of the victim’s harm and the perpetrator’s intention to third-party judgement of accidental harm. In two pre-registered online experiments, we simultaneously manipulated harm severity and the perpetrator’s intention. Participants completed reasoning measures as well as a moral judgement task consisting of short narratives which depicted the interaction between a perpetrator and a victim. In experiment 1, we manipulated the perpetrator’s intent to harm (accidental versus intentional harm) and the victim’s harm (mild versus severe harm). In experiment 2, we aimed to manipulate intent in accidental harm scenarios exclusively, using positive or neutral intents and manipulating harm severity (mild versus severe harm). As expected, intent and harm severity moderated participants’ moral judgement of acceptability, punishment, and blame. Most importantly, in both experiments, the perpetrator’s intent not only interacted with the outcome severity but also polarised moral judgements in participants with a more deliberative reasoning style. While moral judgements of more intuitive reasoners were less sensitive to intent, more deliberative reasoners were more forgiving of accidental harm, especially following mild harm. These findings extend previous studies by showing that reasoning style interacts with intent and harm severity to shape moral judgement of accidents.