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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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Culpable Control and Counterfactual Reasoning in the Psychology of Blame

Mark D. Alicke

Ohio University, alicke{at}ohio.edu

Justin Buckingham

Towson University

Ethan Zell

Ohio University

Teresa Davis

Middle Tennessee State University

Many counterfactual reasoning studies assess how people ascribe blame for harmful actions. By itself, the knowledge that a harmful outcome could easily have been avoided does not predict blame. In three studies, the authors showed that an outcome's mutability influences blame and related judgments when it is coupled with a basis for negative evaluations. Study 1 showed that mutability influenced blame and compensation judgments when a physician was negligent but not when the physician took reasonable precautions to prevent harm. Study 2 showed that this finding was attenuated when the victim contributed to his own demise. In Study 3, whether an actor just missed arriving on time to see his dying mother or had no chance to see her influenced his blameworthiness when his reason for being late provided a basis for negative evaluations but made no difference when there was a positive reason for the delay. These findings clarify the conditions under which an outcome's mutability is likely to influence blame and related attributions.

Key Words: blame • counterfactual • causation • culpability

This version was published on October 1, 2008

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 10, 1371-1381 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167208321594
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