Social norms, social value, and judgments of responsibility
Abstract
We investigated the impact of social norms on responsibility attribution. We hypothesized that an actor would be held more responsible for a negative outcome when adopting a counternormative, rather than normative, conduct. Under these circumstances, judging someone responsible consists of casting the negative social value of the conduct onto the actor. In three experiments, we found that an HIV-positive person was judged more responsible for the infection when his or her conduct transgressed a social norm than when it did not. As expected, this effect was mediated by the social value attributed to the actor, but not by the affective reactions toward him or her. In addition, we ruled out several alternative interpretations of these findings. In Experiment 1, judgments of responsibility were unrelated to causal inferences. In Experiment 2, the salience of the counternormative conduct did not affect the impact of the social norm on responsibility attribution. In Experiment 3, the validation (commonness) of the conduct did not moderate the effect of its normativeness. Overall, the results provide strong support for the idea that responsibility attribution is based on the social desirability of behaviors.
References
1983). Attribution of blame in rape cases: The impact of norm violation, gender, and sex-role attitude.. Sex Roles, 9, 179– 193.
(1975). A bayesian analysis of attribution processes.. Psychological Bulletin, 82, 261– 277.
(1992). Culpable causation.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 368– 378.
(2000). Culpable control and the psychology of blame.. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 556– 574.
(1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173– 1182.
(1990). L'acceptabilité sociale et la connaissance évaluative.. Connexions, 56, 7– 16.
(1995). La connaissance des utilités sociales.. Psychologie Française, 40(4), 375– 387.
(1991). Internal/external orientations and psychological information processing.. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive, 11, 193– 212.
(1992). Traits as evaluative categories.. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive, 12, 253– 270.
(1977). An information-processing approach to attribution of responsibility.. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 58– 69.
(1991). A focus theory of normative conduct: A theoretical refinement and reevaluation of the role of norms in human behavior.. In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 201-234). San Diego: Academic Press..
(1990). A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1015– 1026.
(1979). Semblables et différents: Recherches sur la quête de la similitude et de la différenciation.. Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence..
(1994). Discriminations à l'égard des personnes atteintes du sida: Jugements de responsabilité et inférences personnologiques.. Revue Européenne des Sciences Sociales, 32, 63– 86.
(1995). Croyance en un monde juste: Responsabilités comportementale et morale attribuées aux personnes séropositives.. Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 8, 83– 106.
(1997). Jugements de responsabilité et normes sociales.. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lausanne, Switzerland..
(2000). Jugements de responsabilité et registres de connaissance.. In J.L. Beauvois, R.V. Joule, & J.M. Monteil (Eds.), Perspectives cognitives et conduites sociales (Vol. 7, pp. 323-343). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes..
(1991). When are AIDS patients to blame for their disease? Effects of patients' sexual orientation and mode of transmission.. Psychological Reports, 69, 211– 219.
(1993). Le raisonnement contrefactuel dans l'évaluation de la responsabilité: Le cas des coïncidences malheureuses.. Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 6, 47– 68.
(1994). La norme d'internalité et le libéralisme.. Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble..
(1920). La responsabilité: ;tude de sociologie.. Paris: Alcan..
(1980). Attribution of responsibility: From man the scientist to man as lawyer.. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 81-138). New York: Academic Press..
(1983). A subjective probability approach to responsibility attribution.. British Journal of Social Psychology, 22, 145– 161.
(1991). Attitudes toward a homosexual or heterosexual person with AIDS.. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 651– 667.
(1982). Structural models for the mediation of salience effects on attribution.. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18, 105– 127.
(1982). Reactions to life dilemmas: Risk taking, success and responsibility attribution.. Australian Journal of Psychology, 34, 25– 35.
(1978). Who is responsible? Toward a social psychology of responsibility attribution.. Social Psychology, 41, 316– 328.
(1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations.. New York: Wiley..
(1991). Stigma, prejudice, and violence against lesbians and gay men.. In J.C. Gonsiorek & J.D. Weinrich (Eds.), Homosexuality: Research implications for public policy (pp. 60-80). Newbury Park: Sage Publications..
(1985). Cognitive biases in blaming the victim.. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 161– 177.
(1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives.. Psychological Review, 93, 136– 153.
(1988). Attribution of responsibility for accidents: A negligence law analogy.. Social Cognition, 6, 287– 318.
(1998). Data analysis in social psychology.. In D.T. Gilbert, S.T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 233-265). Boston: McGraw-Hill..
(1988). Victim and observer characteristics as determinants of responsibility attributions to victims of rape.. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 50– 58.
(1983). Attributions of cause and responsibility as social phenomena.. In J. Jaspars, F.D. Fincham, & M. Hewstone (Eds.), Attribution theory and research: Conceptual, developmental and social dimensions (pp. 261- 289). London: Academic Press..
(1942). Social causation.. Boston: Ginn..
(1981). What grabs you? The role of attention in impression formation and causal attribution.. In E.T. Higgins, C.P. Herman, & M.P. Zanna (Eds.), Social cognition: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 1, pp. 201-246). Hillsdale..
(1985). Subjective probabilities and moral judgments.. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 501– 518.
(1990). Counterfactual thinking and social perception: Thinking about what might have been.. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 305-331). New York: Academic Press..
(1982). Finding fault versus attributing responsibility: Using facts differently.. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 454– 459.
(1991). Meta-analytic procedures for social research. (Rev. ed.). Newbury Park: Sage Publications..
(1994). The triangle model of responsibility.. Psychological Review, 101, 632– 652.
(1983). The accountability of conduct: A social psychological analysis.. London: Academic Press..
(1985). The attribution of blame: Causality, responsibility and blameworthiness.. New York: Springer-Verlag..
(1986). On causality, responsibility, and self-blame: A theoretical note.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 697– 702.
(1981). Judgments of causation, responsibility, and punishment in cases of harm-doing.. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 13, 238– 253.
(1990). The stigma of AIDS: Fear of disease and prejudice toward gay men.. Journal of Homosexuality, 19, 85– 101.
(1978). Salience, attention, and attribution: Top of the head phenomena.. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 11, pp. 249-288). New York: Academic Press..
(1987). Heterosexual bias in the perception of loving relationships of gay males and lesbians.. Journal of Sex Research, 23, 163– 172.
(1987). Reactions of AIDS victims: Ambiguity breeds contempt.. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13, 265– 274.
(1995a). Inferences of responsibility and social motivation.. In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 27, pp. 1-47). San Diego: Academic Press..
(1995b). Judgments of responsibility: A foundation for a theory of social conduct.. New York: Guilford..
(1988). An attributional analysis of reactions to stigmas.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 738– 748.
(1989). Mental simulation of causality.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 161– 169.
(