The Effects of Social Roles on Attributions of Intent

Stephen Rowe (Psychology), Andrew Vonasch (Psychology) and Michael-John Turp (Philosophy) have published an article entitled “Unjustifiably Irresponsible: The Effects of Social Roles on Attributions of Intent” in Social Psychological and Personality.

The results indicate that people are more likely to judge the harmful consequences of actions as being brought about intentionally when they think someone unjustifiably violated norms associated with their social role.