JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES VOLUME 3 1 , NUMBER 3, 1975

An Attributional Analysis of Moral Judgments

Michael Ross and Don DiTecco

University of Waterloo

This paper analyzes the psychology of moral judgment from the framework of attribution theory. The relevance of perceptions of responsibility for moral evaluation is examined along with four specific factors proposed to influence the sophistication of responsibility at- tributions: specification, motivational biases, linguistic usage, and at- tributional context, In the final section, the role played by policing mechanisms in the maintenance of moral behavior is discussed.

From Heider’s (1 958) “naive analysis of action,” attribution theory has evolved as a series of propositions that describe the process by which the average man infers causality for events that occur in his environment. According to this analysis, individuals, acting very much like amateur scientists, test the plausibility of various causal explanations by way of a set of relatively well defined operations (Bem, 1972; Jones & Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1967). In this paper we examine the contributioli attribution theory might make to an analysis of moral judgments. Our discussion en- compasses how people come to recognize moral obligations and how they arrive at moral judgments of themselves and others. In the final section, we consider how the individual employs moral judgments to guide his own behavior.

THE PERCEPTION OF MORAL OBLIGATION Heider (1958) examined how people make moral evaluations.

While not denying the role of socialization and learning, he

The writing of this paper was facilitated by Canada Council Grant S74-0696 to Ross and a Canada Council Doctoral Fellowship to DiTecco. We would like to thank Manuel Helzel and Bryan McKay for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We owe Me1 Lerner special thanks both for his comments on the paper and his raising, initially, many of the issues discussed therein.

Correspondence regarding this article may be addressed to M. Ross, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1.

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emphasized that such judgments involve, at their heart, an attribution process. Heider’s discussion of morality centers on the concept of “ought”. Oughts are impersonal standards that indicate what behaviors are appropriate in a particular situation. They have two major defining characteristics: (a) different people should perceive the same ought demands in a given situation (consensual validation), and (b) ought demands should manifest themselves across situations (cross-situational consistency). Note, however, that these two characteristics represent the major criteria for any external or objective attribution (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1971a). For example, if a person (P) laughs as he listens to a comedian, P may attribute his laughter to either factors within himself or in the environment. Thus P could conclude that the comedian was funny (external attribution). Alternatively, being in a very good mood, P could observe that he would have found almost anyone to be amusing and that he does not have any particular liking for the comedian (self-attribution). The likelihood of an external attribution increases i f P perceives that other people in the audience enjoy the comedian (consensual validation) and i f P has heard this comedian previously, in different settings (e.g., on television and the radio), and always found him amusing (cross-situational consistency).

That oughts possess the characteristics of an external attribu- tion has important implications for how they are perceived. Moral standards are often viewed as objective reality rather than subjec- tive judgments on the part of the observer. That is, moral standards appear to be an actual external reality to most people. For example, “Thou shalt not kill” is probably not viewed merely as a statement of opinion (even God’s). I t is a truism. an “objective fact,” an ought demand that is valid across many situations.

Moral Eualun tion

If a person is to be evaluated as morally good or bad on the basis of some behavior, he must be perceived as responsible for the behavior. According to attribution theory, the extent to which a person is viewed as responsible for a behavior is inversely related to the degree to which external factors are perceived to be determinants of the action. This proposition has interesting implications for moral evaluation. Morally good behavior may often be perceived as externally determined in that it is demanded by a universally held ought standard. As a result, perhaps, there is an asymmetry in assignment of credit or blame. Blame is often

AN ATTRIBUTIONAL ANALYSIS 93

attributed for failure to adhere to an ought standard, but mere adherence may receive little praise. Thus parents are likely to punish a child who steals, but less likely to praise him when he fails to steal.

A person receives credit for morally responsible behavior principally when it somehow goes beyond the call of duty. This may occur when a person behaves morally though external circumstances militate against it, as when it is very much against his self-interest to do so. Here it is possible to assign credit because the person is seen as a major determinant of the behavior. It is his especially strong allegiance to the ought standard (many people may have been tempted to contravene it in this circum- stance) that accounts for the action.

There is, however, a more fundamental determinant of perceptions of moral responsibility, namely, the particular inter- pretation of the concept of responsibility which we choose to adopt. It is possible to conceive of personal responsibility in a number of different ways and our tendency to assign moral credit or blame will depend in part on the definition that we select. A good deal of research and speculation has attempted to explicate the determinants of differing interpretations of responsibility.

Heider (1958) suggested that there are five distinct ways of interpreting the term “responsibility.” At the most primitive level (association), the person is held responsible for any action that is connected with him, however remote. For example, descendents may be held responsible for the alleged actions of their forefathers, as when Jews today are blamed for the death of Christ. At the next level (commission), the person is viewed as responsible for anything he causes, even though he could not possibly have foreseen or intended the consequences of his action. For instance, imagine that you opened a closet at a friend’s house, only to discover that it had been turned into an impromptu dark room and that you had ruined several important prints; how responsible would you feel? At the third level (foreseeability), the person is perceived as responsible for any result of his actions that he might have foreseen, even though it was not intended. The eager golfer who hits a drive over a hill without checking to see if the way is clear may be perceived as responsible for injuries which might thereby occur. At the next level (intentionality), the person is seen as responsible only for consequences of his actions that he intended to produce. At this stage the individual is no longer held responsible for the results of accidents. At the fifth and final level (justification), the person is not seen as responsible

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even for consequences that he intentionally produced if the circumstances were such that anyone would have acted as he did. For example, the military law of many countries stipulates that a soldier may not be found guilty for war crimes when he is ordered to commit them by a superior who backs his commands with threats of severe punishment.

Thus, Heider has proposed that there are a number of very different ways of assigning responsibility. Following Piaget (1932), he suggested that there is a progression from relatively primitive, undifferentiated attributions to sophisticated attributions that take into account several factors in the situation. Yet Heider provides little in the way of guidance as to what causes an observer to choose one or another interpretation of responsibility. He does seem to agree, however, with Piaget’s observation that there are developmental stages, that a young child tends to make primitive attributions, ignoring intentions, while the more mature individual weighs intentions very heavily. This observation received some support from research conducted by Shaw and Sulzer (1 964) in which children (6-9 years old) and college students were presented with brief stories depicting Heider’s five interpretations of responsibility. In assigning responsibility for positive and negative outcomes to agents in the stories, college students tended to differentiate more than did the children those situations in which the consequences of the actions could have been foreseen or intended, from those in which foreseeability and intentionality were clearly absent.

Nevertheless, Heider was aware, as evidenced by his examples, that even mature individuals often make “primitive” attributions. Four factors may be seen to influence the sophistication of attributions of responsibility (and associated inferences) made by adults: specification, motivational biases, linguistic usage, and attributional context.

S p ~ i f i ~ u t i o i t . I t is possible to specify the particular interpreta- tion of responsibility that a respondent should use, as in courts of law where the judge often instructs the jury as to the response level they should adopt (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1973). A charge of murder requires proof of intentionality. On the other hand, what is important in libel is not what the author intended to say but what the words meant to the people reading them. These examples provide further evidence that adults are able to interpret responsi- bility in different ways. A more interesting question, however, is: what causes individuals to freely choose to adopt one inter- pretation versus another?

Motivated biases. Many investigators have assumed that indi-

AN ATTRIRUTIONAL ANALYSIS 95

viduals’ perceptions of responsibility are influenced by their own desires and self-interest. Thus Heider (19%) asserted that the selection of a causal attribution depends on two factors: “(1) the reason has to fit the wishes of the person and (2) the datum has to be plausibly derived from the reason” (p. 172). I n some instances it may be in the best interests of an observer to make primitive attributions of responsibility for the harmful conse- quences of another’s actions. For example, Walster (1966) suggest- ed that an observer wants to assign blame to the innocent victim of an accident as the consequences of the accident become increasingly severe, because a chance (external) attribution would imply that a misfortune of similar magnitude could occur to anyone, including the observer. Shaver ( i970a) has referred to this process as defensive attribution. Defensive attributions by harmdoers would presumably take a different form. They may deny personal responsibility for any harmful consequences of their actions by ascribing to only the most sophisticated interpreta- tions of responsibility. By doing so, harmdoers would transfer blame to the environment and deflect it from themselves.

In recent years, a considerable amount of research has been directed at the hypothesis that observers are motivated to make primitive responsibility attributions for the harmful consequences of another’s behavior. Walster (1966) asked adult subjects to indicate the extent to which they felt a car owner was responsible for an automobile accident caused by a mechanical failure in the automobile. As the presence of this fault was allegedly unknown to the owner, Walster’s description would seem to represent Heider’s third level of attribution. T h e owner did not intend or foresee the consequences, though they might have been foreseen. Subjects’ judgments indicated that the more severe the alleged consequences of the accident, the more responsibility was attributed to the person who caused it. Replications of this study, however, have generally failed to show these effects of severity on attributions of responsibility (Shaver, 1970a, 1970b; Stokols & Schopier, 1973; Walster, 1967), though a study by Chaikin and Darley ( 1973) is partially supportive. While attributions of responsibility to a harmdoer did not increase significantly with severity, subjects were less likely to see chance as responsible when the consequences were severe.

Fishbein and Ajzen (1973) have suggested that the conflicting results in these studies may reflect subjects’ uncertainty as to what interpretation of responsibility to utilize in making their judgments. Conceivably, Walster’s initial results would be repro- duced if subjects operate at the levels of association or commission.

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On the other hand, subjects who equate responsibility with intentionality are not likely to evidence the severity effect. While this explanation seems reasonable, it is not clear why subjects adopted one set in the Walster (1966) and Chaikin and Darley ( 1973) experiments and a different set in the remaining research.

More consistent support for motivational biases in causal perceptions has accrued to a broader formulation proposed by Lerner (Lerner, 1965, 1970; Lerner 8c Matthews, 1967) which goes beyond a concept of simple defensiveness to postulate that individuals wish to believe (and indeed for their own sanity need to believe) that the world is just, that in general people get what they deserve. Lerner’s formulation suggests that innocent victims should be perceived as responsible for negative outcomes and /or derogated when restitution (and thus maintenance of a just world) is not possible. In his research, Lerner has shown that observers derogate strangers who have been assigned punishment in an experiment, thus making outcomes consistent with deserving (Lerner and Simmons, 1966). Similarly a worker who by chance is highly paid is perceived as doing a better job than a worker who by chance is not paid (Lerner, 1965). These data suggest that responsibility attributions, primitive if necessary, are one means by which people maintain their belief in a just world.

To this point we have considered only causal inferences with respect to another’s behavior. What is the nature of the attributions made by the harmdoer himself? Perhaps the strongest evidence that harrndoers do make primitive self-attributions is derived from the transgi-ession-coinpliance literature. The basic paradigm in experiments o n transgression and compliance involves inducing subjects to engage in some form of transgression and then observing the extent to which they comply with a request made usually, though not exclusively, by the victim of the transgression. The general finding is that the transgression produces a dramatic increase in compliance rates. The theoretical explanation often advanced for this finding is that the harmdoer, feeling guilty for his transgression, seeks to absolve his guilt through altruistic behavior (Freedman, 1970; Freedman, Wallington, & Bless, 1967). When one considers the manipulations involved in these studies, what is most intriguing is that the harmdoer feels any guilt or responsibility for- the transgression (Lerner, Note 1). In no instance does the subject intend to do something wrong-he is always a victim o f circumstances. Examination of the manipulations employed in this research suggests that self-attributions of respon- sibility fall within the inore primitive levels of Heider’s classification

AN ATTRIBUTIONAL. ANALYSIS 97

scheme. For example, level 2 (commission) is represented in experiments in which the subject is made to feel guilty because an expensive experimental apparatus explodes when he is doing his best to work with it in the manner prescribed by the experi- menter (Brock & Becker, 1966), or because he accidentally knocks over index cards from someone’s thesis (Freedman, Wallington, & Bless, 1967; Cialdini, Darby, & Vincent, 1973). In short, the literature suggests quite clearly that it is not difficult to devise an experimental situation in which the subject is made to feel responsible for bizarre, unintended, and unforeseeable conse- quences of his actions.

Additional support for primitive self-attribution is found in Lerner’s research on justice theory (L,erner, 1970; Lerner & Matthews, 1967), where subjects evidence guilt when they engage in a chance procedure that randomly assigns someone else rather than themselves to receive shock. Lerner (Note 1) has also provided a number of compelling anecdotes which suggest that individuals often ascribe responsibility to themselves for unintended, unfore- seen harm. For example:

Imagine [you are] sitting at a forinal dinner p i - t y next to a gentlemail who is dressed quite elegantly as is everyone at the table. A loud noise causes you to jerk reflexively, thereby causing your elbow t o flip a bowl o f soup on t o the man sitting next t o you. H o w do you feel? (1). 47)

Experimental and anecdotal evidence does suggest that, contrary to a defensive attribution hypothesis, people seem only too willing to accept responsibility for the harm that they have caused.

On the other hand, there is evidence that identification or perceived similarity with the harmdoer reduces blaming responses by observers. Shaver ( 1970a) manipulated the relationship between the observer and the harmdoer both by presenting information regarding age and sex and by instructing subjects to imagine that the harmdoer was very much like themselves or not at all like themselves. Generally, Shaver found that the degree of responsibility imputed decreased when the attributor perceived himself as resembling the harmdoer. Similarly, Chaikin and Darley’s ( 1973) subjects viewed an accident with the understanding that they would be placed immediat.ely into a situation in which an identical accident could be caused by them or could happen to them. Subjects who were potential harmdoers were more likely to attribute the accident to chance and less likely to blame the perpetrator than were those who were potential victims. Finally,

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Aderman, Brehm, and Katz (1974) investigated derogation of an innocent victim as a function of empathy instructions. Subjects tended to derogate the victim when given empathy inhibiting instructions (evidence for a primitive blaming response), while empathy inducing instructions eliminated or reversed the deroga- tion effect.

Shaver and Chaikin and Darley interpreted their findings as support for a defensive attribution hypothesis. If a person is like me (or if I am soon to be in his position), then I should be motivated to see that individual as not responsible for an accident. By denying his culpability, I am able to avoid possible blame myself in the future, should I somehow “cause” a similar accident to occur.

On the other hand, these data may be explained by more general perceptual-cognitive processes. The perception of respon- sibility has been conceptualized as consisting of two separate phases: the selection of cues from the information provided and the drawing of inferences about responsibility from these cues (Jones 8c Thibaut, 1958; Shrauger & Altrocchi, 1964). Because of the complexities of the experimental situations, it is unlikely that subjects can assimilate all of the information provided. Consequently, they are likely to focus on only some of the available cues, and the identification, empathy inducing, or perceived similarity manipulations may induce a perceptual set which causes the subjects to concentrate on a particular subset of the informa- tion. This type of explanation was evoked by Hastorf and Cantril (1954) to explain the pattern of reporting that they obtained from students who were instructed to record rule infractions while viewing a film of a Princeton-Dartmouth football game. The subjects, Princeton and Dartmouth students, produced apparently biased responses in favor of their own team. For example, Princeton students reported seeing over twice as many infractions by the Dartmouth team as the Dartmouth students reported of their own team. Hastorf and Cantril maintained that “out of all the occurrences going on in the environment, a person selects those that have some significance for him from his oum egocentric position in the total matrix” (p. 133).

In a similar vein, Maccoby and Wilson (1957) found that the amount and kind of material a viewer recalls from a movie depends in part on whom he identified with in the movie. The subjects, boys and girls in the seventh grade, tended to identify with the like-sexed leading character. Tests of memory for movie content indicated that the boys remembered more aggressive

AN ATTRIBUTIONAL ANALYSIS 99

content than the girls, provided the agent of aggression was the boy hero. Conversely the girls remembered more accurately than the boys the social behavior of the heroine. The impact of perceptual set is further demonstrated in a study by Carlson (1961) who had subjects read descriptions of individuals with the idea of either selecting the person who would make a good leader or a good friend. Subsequently, subjects were asked to recall the characteristics of the various individuals. Not surpris- ingly, subjects were most likely to remember characteristics that were related to the set which they had been given-friend or leader.

It seems probable that the identification manipulations affect both cue selection and the inferences drawn from the cues. For example, Chaikin and Darley may have induced particular per- ceptual sets by causing subjects to anticipate assuming the role of one of two actors in a video-taped vignette. As in the Maccoby and Wilson study, perhaps subjects focussed on and recalled more precisely the actions of the particular actor with whom they identified. When the accident occurred, the perpetrator’s inno- cence (he “accidentally” caused a table to wobble with the result that the victim’s work was destroyed) may have been more apparent to those who attended his actions most carefully. Subjects who were concentrating on the victim of the accident rather than the perpetrator may have been less certain as to how the accident came about and hence somewhat more skeptical as to whether it was indeed a chance occurence. The implication of this “percep- tual set” interpretation is that asking subjects to attend closely to the actions of one or other of the actors should produce the same results as those found by Chaikin and Darley.

Further research is required to determine the extent to which the effects of the identification manipulations depend on differen- tial cue selection. One research paradigm that could be utilized would expose subjects to the stimulus material prior to the identification manipulation. All subjects would then presumably have access (in memory) to the same cues on which to base their inferences. Any effects attributable to the subsequent identification manipulation would be the result of either biases in cue utilization or biases in inferences drawn from the cues.

The above emphasis on cue selection should not be interpreted as a denial of motivational biases in the perceptual process. Such a position would be untenable (Bruner, 1957; Erdelyi, 1974), especially in the light of recent data obtained in research on subliminal perception (Dixon, 197 1 ) and, more commonly, evi-

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dence from the world around us. Alirisky (1972) provided a striking example of the latter when he noted that the judgment of ethics is often dependent on the political position of the evaluator. Thus, Palestinizn guei-rillas regard themselves as courageous idealists willing to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs; adversaries perceive them as terrorists and murderers. “The opposition’s means, used against us, are always immoral and our means are always ethical and rooted in the highest human values” (Alinsky, 1972, p. 29).

We are suggesting, though, that much of the research evidence relating identification to motivational distortion may be reinter- preted in terms of differential attention and cue selection. Further, it is possible to design research paradigms that will distinguish between the various processes and allow us to assess the relative contribution o f each.

I n summary, there is ample research evidence that adults make primitive attributions. At times, these primitive attributions seem designed to f i t the wishes of the person. In other contexts, however, the exact opposite appears to be true, as when a harmdoer makes an inappropriate self-attribution. Moreover, the data from studies on identification with a harmdoer, though consistent with the defensive attribution hypothesis, are open to alternative, nondefensive explanations. Perhaps the focus on irrational, ego- supportive attributions has led researchers to overlook the possible contribution of perceptual-cognitive processes in generating primitive attributions, as well as instances in which the individual makes attributions (appropriately or inappropriately) which are clearly damaging to his self-image.

Linguistic propertius. Although the effects of language have not been studied with direct regard to responsibility attributions, the potential importance of language to this area warrants our examination. Language implicitly forms the basis by which we interpret events in the world (Eiser, Note 2; Eiser 8c Ross, Note 3; Kanouse, 197 1 ; Whorf, 1941). Consequently, the language we learn to use can influence and indeed determine our attributions. Osgood (197 1) observed that propagandists are aware that manip- ulation of the semantic features of language can be a powerful tool: “Just as the same odor may be called an aroma or stench, depending on how one wants the listener to feel about it, so may the same guerillas be called freedom fighters, rebels, o r terrorists, depending on how one wishes the listener to feel about them” (p. 105).Another example concerns the distinction between traitor and patriot. T h e labels connote very different evaluations, yet the particular label used largely depends upon the success

AN ATTRIBUTIONAI. ANALYSIS 101

of the person’s actions. As Alinsky (1972) has observed, there can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if he succeeds he becomes a “founding father.”

There is the suggestion here o f a reciprocal relationship between attitudes and language. T h e attitude one has toward a particular subject will determine the kind of language used in talking or thinking about that subject. On the othei hand, the kind of language one employs may play a role in the shaping or structuring of one’s attitudes.

Further, Kanouse (197 1) provided evidence that the language used to describe a phenonienon will affect the attributions we are likely to make in order to explain it. For example, people are more likely to generaliLe across the object of a sentence than its subject. Kanouse explains this finding by positing the atti-ibu- tional assumption that “people differ more with respect to how they act or feel than they do with respect to how they are acted upon or felt toward . . . [thus] assertions implicitly locate the cause primarily with the actor rather than the object” (p. 8). If this line of reasoning is correct, the sentence “John failed Mrs. Plumtree’s course” may tacitly implicate John in his academic shortcoming more than would the revelation, “Mrs. Plumtree failed John.” Although both sentences convey the same information, psychologically they may not.

Also of interest is Kanouse’s conclusion that the level of generality used to describe a phenomenon will influence the level of generality used to explain it. For example subjects were told “0 destroys Reader’s Digests. ”Some subjects were then led to agree with the intervening statement “0 destroys magalines,” while others were induced to agree that “0 hates Reader’s Digest.” Finally all subjects were asked to indicate whether “0 hates magazines.” If the object (Reader’s Digest) was generalized first (“destroys magazines”), 0 s behavior was explained in terms of this general- ization (“hates magazines”). However, if the object was not general- ized before the explanation was provided (“hates Reader3 Digest”), agreement with the further generalization, “0 hates magazines,” was diminished.

What implications might these findings have for research connected with moral judgments? First, the attribution process appears to be far more complex and subtle than might have been previously supposed. From a methodological point of view it is apparent that research must be carefully examined with respect to the evaluative connotations and implicit attributional biases in the language presented to the subjects. Minor differences in

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wording may have major attributional implications. More specific t o the perception of responsibility, the relative allocation of responsibility between the person and the environment may be affected by the particular language with which the event is described to the attributor and indeed the semantic structure of the attributor’s own thoughts about the event. Moreover, the impact of language may be all the more powerful because of its subtlety-we are generally. unaware of its effect on our attitudes and casual attributions. Thus minor variations in semantics may have a greater influence on moral evaluations than more overt effortsat persuasion. If 1 am taught to think in terms of Palestinian guerrillas, I am likely to have a very different evaluation of their behavior than if the phrase “Palestinian terrorists” leaps to mind. On the other hand, I might resist, or at least question, more heavy handed attempts to sway my evaluations (Eiser and Ross, Note 3 ) .

Attributional context. To this point, we have not considered why people make attributions and the influence that their particu- lar goals may have on the attribution process itself. The interest in understanding the determinants of another’s behavior may stem from a variety of sources, for instance, curiosity, the need to engage in social interaction, or the desire for power or social control (Heider, 1958; Jones 8c Thibaut, 1958). In experiments, of course, subjects may make causal attributions primarily because the experimenter required them to do so. In short, situations differ in terms of the importance people attach to their causal attributions. This suggests that an individual may be most likely to engage in a full-blown causal analysis when the need to predict and control another’s behavior is clearly present. On the other harid, if this motivation is lacking, the situation may not warrant a detailed analysis. And perhaps it is in these latter instances where primitive attributions are most likely to occur. Because of their relative salience, temporal and spacial continguity between act and outcome are apt to be interpreted as a basis for assigning responsibility, while the less obvious and more difficult to assess considerations of intentionality and foreseeability are ignored. In a similar vein, Kanouse (197 1) and Kelley (197 la , 197 lb) have proposed that individuals may often not be motivated to seek the best possible explanation for an event, but merely a sufficiently satisfactory one. The suggestion here is that primitive attributions may be sufficiently satisfactory when the consequences of the attribution are minimal in terms of its future significance for the attributor.

AN ATTRIBUTIONAL ANALYSIS 103

Though there is little direct evidence in support of this hypothesis, the transgression-compliance data are suggestive. The primitive self-attributions that seem to result from transgressions may be due to the fact that such attributions do not have future functional significance. Conceivably, I need not analyze the many possible causes of a transgression to determine what kind of person I am, to predict how I might act in the future. I have evidence from my actions in many other situations from which 1 can draw, and probably already have drawn, these kinds of conclusions. On the other hand, an observer of the transgression who might be required to interact with me in the future and indeed the victim of the transgression who must respond to me immediately are more likely to perform a detailed causal analysis and to go beyond commission and association as determinants of responsi- bility. For instance, in Lerner’s (Note 1) example of accidentally spilling soup on someone’s lap, while the person who spills the soup may make a primitive attribution and feel extremely guilty, observers of the act (including the victim) are likely to perceive it as a chance occurrence and not hold the perpetrator blamewor- thy.

We are proposing that primitive attributions may often be the result of a hasty or superficial analysis of the causal antecedents of an action. They are likely to occur where the results of the causal analysis have minimal future significance for the perceiver with regard to his efforts to predict or control his environment. In concluding, however, it should be noted that primitive attribu- tions may also be likely even in situations which merit detailed analysis, when:

1. Sufficient time is not available to complete such an analysis before action is required. In a study by Miller and Norman (1975) active observers, who engaged in a prisoner’s dilemma game with another subject, attributed more behavioral responsibility to the subject and less responsibility to the interaction setting than did passive observers who merely viewed the interaction. The active observer in this experiment is engaged in what Jones and Thibaut (1958) have referred to as a “reciprocally contingent” interaction. To be successful at the prisoner’s dilemma game the active observer had to predict accurately his opponent’s behavior; however, he had very little time in which to consider the evidence on which to base his attributions. The active observer was continually required to act on his hunches-to decide his response to each o f the 30 trials in the game. This type of interaction requires that much of the perceiver’s attention be directed at his own future responses rather than to causal analyses of the opponent’s behavior. “The main moment-to-moment problem is not ‘What is he like?’ but ‘What

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am I going to do next?’” (Jones & Thibaut, 1958, p. 158). As a result, perhaps, the active observer tended to make the niore hasty and obvious primitive attributions, while the passive observer was more able to consider some of the possible factors that might have influenced the target person’s behavior.

2. Emotional arousal, such as extreme anger, may prevent the individ- ual from pausing and performing ;I detailed analysis. Lerner (Note 1) suggests that such emotional arousal is critical to the primitive attributions which underlie derogation of “innocent” victims. Summary. There is substantial evidence to suggest that adults

can and do assign responsibility in very different ways. While the five levels proposed by Heider may represent a developmental progression, there seems to be a surprising number of instances in which adults do make the more primitive attributions. Several different factors appear to enter into the decision making process. Though most of the research has examined the impact of motiva- tional biases, our analysis suggests the importance of considering such additional variables as perceptual set, semantics, and the context in which the attributions occur.

MORAL JL’UGR.fEN7.5.4ND MORAL B EHAV IoR

While it is very important to understand the processes by which people come to perceive moral obligations and responsibility, our major interest probably lies in moral behavior itself. People tend to behave morally. Though it limits one’s freedom, though it may be inconsistent with immediate self-interest, one does what “ought” to be done. Why?

This question has traditionally received one of two answers (e.g., Asch, 1952). First, it is ultimately in everyone’s interest to behave in accordance with moral standards. While our own freedom is thereby limited, so too is that of others; we can anticipate the behavior of others and they can anticipate ours; paths of action are established and mutual trust is possible. Second, apart from self-interest, there is the fear of punishment if we do happen to violate “ought” demands.

Fear is usually seen as an inadequate explanation of adherence to moral standards, however, since moral behavior is thought to persist in the absence of enforcement (Asch, 1952). Nevertheless, it would probably be an error to underestimate the contribution of fear. There is evidence that the frequency of moral trans- gressions increases dramatically as the certainty of punishment decreases (Meehl, 1971). For example, in September 1944 the German army arrested the entire Danish police force; as a result

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the number o f robberies increased dramatically. I n 1969 the Montreal police went on strike for 16 hours. During this brief period, “ordinary” people (as opposed to professional criminals who were busy robbing banks) engaged in wholesale looting and caused a very large amount of property damage. Next, consider the matter of taxes. T h e entire structure of Western governments is dependent on the willingness of citizens to pay taxes. Moreover, most of us are fairly honest in filling out our returns, though if we all decided to cheat on a grand scale there would really be very little the government could d o about it. T h e system is built primarily on trust. Yet evidence from Norway suggests that almost all of us would he tax evaders if we were certain that we could get away with it. In 1945 the Norwegian government required taxpayers to register bank accounts and securities. T h e result was that very large amounts of money surfaced that had not previously been declared for tax purposes. Another example, more anecdotal and closer to home perhaps, is the increased promiscuity that seems to be associated with attendance at out-of- town conventions. T h e self-imposed faithfulness of at least some dutiful spouses appears to be discarded when the possibility of detection, and the attendant negative repercussions, are nil. All of these examples suggest that obedience to moral standards is not quite as internalized as is often assumed.

How then do we account for the contradictions? People seem to obey moral standards in normal circumstances, yet in the absence of surveillance morality appears to break down. One obvious interpretation of this phenomenon is that individuals vary in the degree to which they have internalized moral standards. When policing agencies are removed, those of us with insufficiently internalized standards are likely to engage in extra-legal or, more generally, extra-moral behavior. But this explanation would appear to beg the question. Surely most of us realize that we could engage in certain tempting but unacceptable behaviors virtually without fear of detection. Yet we generally avoid such behaviors unless the possibility of punishment is saliently absent.

T h e answer to this apparent contradiction may relate to both our original definition of oughts as impersonal, consensually- validated standards and to Heider’s analysis of the differing interpretations of responsibility. In normal times, it is likely that individuals d o not typically analyze the reasons for their own and others’ compliance with moral standards. Correct behavior is the accepted norm. Such an analysis is likely to occur, however, when the individual is placed in a quandary, when the possibility

106 MICHAEL ROSS AND DON DITECCO

of detection is saliently absent for a behavior that the individual finds extremely enticing. If in his ‘naive analysis of action” the individual comes to the conclusion that most people would give in to temptation in the absence of surveillance, then his own inhibitions are likely to be reduced. When a person assumes that anyone would engage in a certain behavior, he is able to deny personal responsibility for his own decision to perform the act. In terms of Heider’s interpretations of responsibility, the person’s analysis is at the level of justification, where one is not seen as responsible even for consequences that he intentionally pro- duced if the circumstances were such that anyone would have acted as he did. Instead of making an internal attribution (“I am an immoral person”) the individual is able to make an external attribution (external pressures, human nature) for a decision to perform the behavior. In some cases justified self-interest may combine with inferred consensus, further reducing inhibitions to act immorally. If others would contravene moral standards to their own profit, the person may feel that he is getting less than he deserves if he fails to do likewise (Adams, 1965; Lerner, Miller, & Holmes, in press).

Under what Circumstances might the above analysis be ap- plicable? One key consideration is temptation. Not everybody turns into a looter when the police are removed, in part because not everybody finds looting a tempting proposition. Some of us have as many color televisions and radios as we can use. Unless we are tempted, we are unlikely to engage in the above attributional analysis and to assume that anyone would loot when fear of punishment is removed. As a result, there are probably large individual differences in the activities perceived as likely to occur in the absence of any possibility of punishment. For example, perhaps most people would cheat on their income tax. But would they cheat on their wives? Shoplift? Rob the rich? Steal from old ladies? Murder?

In summary, we are suggesting that policing mechanisms are valuable not because moral behavior is truly motivated pri- marily by fear of punishment, but because people assume that in some instances the behavior of comparison others is regulated in part by such external pressures. In the absence of these pressures it may be expected that most people will give in to temptation. This assumption has two important implications. First, the individ- ual need not perceive himself as an immoral person if he chooses to contravene the standard. Second, it may be in his own self-in- terest to act or he risks getting less than he deserves.

AN A I T R I B U T I O N A L ANALYSIS 107

SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS The area of moral judgment represents a conceptually chal-

lenging and socially relevant sphere of investigation. It is an area that demands investigation from a number of related disciplines: moral philosophy, sociolinguistics, social psychology, and cogni- tive-perceptual psychology, to name a few. To this point social psychological investigations have tended to be relatively few in number. Moreover, those that have been conducted often seem to have been unnecessarily narrow both in conceptualization (ignoring the possible contributions of other disciplines) and in methodology (with an emphasis on noninvolvirig paper-and-pencil experiments). At a time when demands for relevance are shaking the roots of social psychology, it is to be hoped that increased attention will be directed at this problem area.

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