Money, moral transgressions, and blame
Money, moral transgressions, and blame
Two experiments tested participants' attributions for others' immoral behaviors when conducted for more versus less money. We hypothesized and found that observers would blame wrongdoers more when seeing a transgression enacted for little rather than a lot of money, and that this would be evident in observers' hand-washing behavior. Experiment 1 used a cognitive dissonance paradigm. Participants (N = 160) observed a confederate lie in exchange for either a relatively large or a small monetary payment. Participants blamed the liar more in the small (versus large) money condition. Participants (N = 184) in Experiment 2 saw images of someone knocking over another to obtain a small, medium, or large monetary sum. In the small (versus large) money condition, participants blamed the perpetrator (money) more. Hence, participants assigned less blame to moral wrong-doers, if the latter enacted their deed to obtain relatively large sums of money. Small amounts of money accentuate the immorality of others' transgressions.
money, morality, cognitive dissonance, attribution, blame, contagion
299-306
Xie, W.
11727ba1-e89f-47fe-b372-84455f83132e
Yu, B.
37bf1660-c4b9-4a56-a86a-d7821eafb8b2
Zhou, X.
bee0e911-42d5-4854-8520-cf87faecb3a9
Sedikides, C.
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Vohs, K.D.
d1d36182-0ae8-4bb1-92fd-d605df576f9e
July 2014
Xie, W.
11727ba1-e89f-47fe-b372-84455f83132e
Yu, B.
37bf1660-c4b9-4a56-a86a-d7821eafb8b2
Zhou, X.
bee0e911-42d5-4854-8520-cf87faecb3a9
Sedikides, C.
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Vohs, K.D.
d1d36182-0ae8-4bb1-92fd-d605df576f9e
Xie, W., Yu, B., Zhou, X., Sedikides, C. and Vohs, K.D.
(2014)
Money, moral transgressions, and blame.
Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24 (3), .
(doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2013.12.002).
Abstract
Two experiments tested participants' attributions for others' immoral behaviors when conducted for more versus less money. We hypothesized and found that observers would blame wrongdoers more when seeing a transgression enacted for little rather than a lot of money, and that this would be evident in observers' hand-washing behavior. Experiment 1 used a cognitive dissonance paradigm. Participants (N = 160) observed a confederate lie in exchange for either a relatively large or a small monetary payment. Participants blamed the liar more in the small (versus large) money condition. Participants (N = 184) in Experiment 2 saw images of someone knocking over another to obtain a small, medium, or large monetary sum. In the small (versus large) money condition, participants blamed the perpetrator (money) more. Hence, participants assigned less blame to moral wrong-doers, if the latter enacted their deed to obtain relatively large sums of money. Small amounts of money accentuate the immorality of others' transgressions.
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e-pub ahead of print date: 12 December 2013
Published date: July 2014
Keywords:
money, morality, cognitive dissonance, attribution, blame, contagion
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 366730
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/366730
ISSN: 1057-7408
PURE UUID: 2033a498-59a5-4435-bad0-e0f332cb6c90
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Date deposited: 08 Jul 2014 10:49
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:02
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Contributors
Author:
W. Xie
Author:
B. Yu
Author:
X. Zhou
Author:
K.D. Vohs
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