The Influence of Outcome Severity on Ascriptions of Intention & Punishment

Are adults' and childrens' ascriptions of intention and allocations of punishment affected not only by the valence of a protagonist's intention (positive/negative), but also by the undesirability of (potentially unintended) outcome(s) of the protagonist’s action (e.g., something gets broken)? Even young children are sensitive to whether an outcome was intended when allocating blame/punishment (Nunez & Harris, 1998). However, the moral acceptability of the (possibly unintended) outcome of an action may also ‘retroactively’ influence the degree to which the outcome is judged intentional and thus blame/praiseworthy. In particular, negative unintended outcomes are more likely to be classified as intentional than positive unintended outcomes by children and adults (Knobe, 2003; Leslie, Knobe, & Cohen, 2006). In the present study, we focus on the negative side of the outcome spectrum (neutral, mildly negative, moderately negative), and we varied whether or not the protagonist’s motive had been to achieve a negative or positive outcome. We discuss how intention valence and outcome severity influenced ascriptions of intention and punishment, and moral ratings of the protagonist.