Bad Victims: Moral Transgressions Against Immoral Victims are Judged Less Harshly

Abstract

Three pre-registered studies find that perpetrators who commit moral transgressions are judged less harshly when their transgressions impact individuals who have committed immoral actions (bad victims). In Studies 1 and 2, we used between- and within-participant comparisons to show that perpetrators, and the moral transgressions they committed, were judged less harshly when they impacted bad (vs. neutral) victims. In Study 3, contrary to predictions derived from both karma theory and dyadic morality, we did not find evidence that perpetrators who transgressed against highly moral individuals (good victims) were seen differently than those who transgressed against neutral victims. The increased leniency towards perpetrators who transgressed against bad victims occurred even though perpetrators in our studies did not know who their victims were, meaning this leniency did not result from the perception that perpetrators were intentionally punishing bad victims. Instead, consistent with research on dehumanization of immoral individuals, bad victims were seen as having less capacity for emotional experience (relative to both good and neutral victims). Thus, our findings suggest that moral transgressions against bad victims are viewed as less wrong because these transgressions are perceived to cause less harm to their victims.

Keywords: Dyadic Morality, Dehumanization, Karma, Blame, Moral Judgments