Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jan 20:9:138-168.
doi: 10.1162/opmi_a_00185. eCollection 2025.

On the Perception of Moral Standing to Blame

Isaias Ghezae  1 , Fan Yang  2 , Hongbo Yu  1
Affiliations

On the Perception of Moral Standing to Blame

Isaias Ghezae et al. Open Mind (Camb). .

Abstract

Is everyone equally justified in blaming another's moral transgression? Across five studies (four pre-registered; total N = 1,316 American participants), we investigated the perception of moral standing to blame-the appropriateness and legitimacy for someone to blame a moral wrongdoing. We propose and provide evidence for a moral commitment hypothesis-a blamer is perceived to have low moral standing to blame a moral transgressor if the blamer demonstrates weak commitment to that moral rule. As hypothesized, we found that when blamers did not have the chance or relevant experience to demonstrate good commitment to a moral rule, participants generally believed that they had high moral standing to blame. However, when a blamer demonstrated bad commitment to a moral rule in their past behaviors, participants consistently granted the blamer low moral standing to blame. Low moral standing to blame was generally associated with perceiving the blame to be less effective and less likely to be accepted. Moreover, indirectly demonstrating moral commitment, such as acknowledging one's past wrongdoing and feeling/expressing guilt, modestly restored moral standing to blame. Our studies demonstrate moral commitment as a key mechanism for determining moral standing to blame and emphasize the importance of considering a blamer's moral standing as a crucial factor in fully understanding the psychology of blame.

Keywords: blame; moral commitment; moral knowledge; moral standing.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interests.

Figures

<b>Figure 1.</b>
Figure 1.
Results of Study 1. Primary dependent variables as a function of the moral commitment factor and the type of rule factor.
<b>Figure 2.</b>
Figure 2.
Results of Study 2. Primary dependent variables as function of blamer’s experience with the moral rule that they blame the blamee for.
<b>Figure 3.</b>
Figure 3.
Results of Study 3. Primary dependent variables as function of blamer’s experience with the moral rule that they blame the blamee for.
<b>Figure 4.</b>
Figure 4.
Results of Study 4. Primary dependent variables as a function of type of blame and type of blamer.
<b>Figure 5.</b>
Figure 5.
Results of Study 5. Primary dependent variables as function of whether blamer acknowledge their past wrongdoing and the emotion associated with the blame.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Adler, N. E., Epel, E. S., Castellazzo, G., & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, White women. Health Psychology, 19(6), 586–592. 10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586, - DOI - PubMed
    1. Anderson, R. A., Crockett, M. J., & Pizarro, D. A. (2020). A theory of moral praise. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(9), 694–703. 10.1016/j.tics.2020.06.008, - DOI - PubMed
    1. Barden, J., Rucker, D. D., & Petty, R. E. (2005). “Saying one thing and doing another”: Examining the impact of event order on hypocrisy judgments of others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(11), 1463–1474. 10.1177/0146167205276430, - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1994). Guilt: An interpersonal approach. Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 243–267. 10.1037/0033-2909.115.2.243, - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bell, M. (2013). The standing to blame: A critique. In Coates D. J. & Tognazzini N. A. (Eds.), Blame: Its nature and norms (pp. 263–281). Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199860821.003.0014 - DOI