The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: The nonlinear relationship between act and character judgments
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
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Schrickx, Hanne
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
- Abstract
- People may assume that immoral act severity and judgments of character have a one-to-one, linear relationship; that is, as people’s perception of the severity of an immoral act increases, character judgments about the person performing the act become equally worse. However, evidence suggests that character judgments might be more categorical or discrete. We examine the relationship between act severity and character judgments in 3 studies—one correlational study, in which participants rated act severity and character for 19 different immoral act scenarios; one experimental study, in which participants rated act severity and character for act scenarios with 5 levels of severity; and a final experimental study, in which participants predicted an individual’s future actions, across different severity levels, based on that individual’s past action. Results suggest that character judgments are overall more discrete than judgments of act severity; in particular, we find evidence suggesting that evil is a distinct category of character. These findings improve our understanding of moral impression formation and suggest that judgments of blame, punishment, and likelihood of recidivism may vary depending on whether act or character is emphasized.
- Date of publication
- summer 2016
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: Tom and Elizabeth Long Excellence Fund for Honors
- Advisor
- Gray, Kurt
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 39
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