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. 2024 Sep 6;19(9):e0306119.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306119. eCollection 2024.

Observers' motivated sensitivity to stigmatized actors' intent

William A Staples  1 , Jason E Plaks  1
Affiliations

Observers' motivated sensitivity to stigmatized actors' intent

William A Staples et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Does a harmful act appear more intentional-and worthy of opprobrium-if it was committed by a member of a stigmatized group? In two studies (N = 1,451), participants read scenarios in which an actor caused a homicide. We orthogonally manipulated the relative presence or absence of distal intent (a focus on the end) and proximal intent (a focus on the means) in the actor's mind. We also varied the actor's racial (Study 1) or political (Study 2) group. In both studies, participants judged the stigmatized actor more harshly than the non-stigmatized actor when the actor's level of intent was ambiguous (i.e., one form of intent was high and the other form of intent was low). These data suggest that observers apply a sliding threshold when judging an actor's intent and moral responsibility; whereas less-stigmatized actors elicit condemnation only when they cause the outcome with both types of intent in mind, more-stigmatized actors elicit condemnation when only one type, or even neither type (Study 2) of intent is in their mind. We discuss how these results enrich the literature on lay theories of intentionality.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Mean moral judgment ratings of the White and Black actor in all four intent conditions.
Y-axis indicates mean-centered Moral Judgment Index score. Asterix denote significance.
Fig 2
Fig 2
One of the four neutral posts (top), one of the four liberal posts (middle), and one of the four conservative posts (bottom).
Fig 3
Fig 3. Judgments of the liberal and conservative actor by relatively conservative participants in all four intent conditions.
Y-axis indicates mean-centered Moral Judgment Index score.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Judgments of the liberal and conservative actor by relatively liberal participants in all four intent conditions.
Y-axis indicates mean-centered Moral Judgment Index score. Asterix denote significance.
Fig 5
Fig 5
Distribution of participants in the liberal tertile (left side of the graph) and conservative tertile (right side of the graph).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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