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Bad people doing good things: Attributions about people with immoral traits

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Abstract

Perfect duties are those required by moral individuals, whereas imperfect duties, although not required, are expected of moral individuals. Previous research suggests it takes fewer perfect than imperfect duty violations to override an existing impression of a person as moral. Presently, we examine moral attributions about immoral people performing moral behaviors. Across four studies, we assessed whether initial impressions of a person as immoral are reversible, and if so, what is the mechanism of these changes in impressions of people with immoral traits? In order to do so, we measured how many moral behaviors are required to reverse them. We also assessed the mediating role of affect and intent in these moral attributions, and assessed perceptions of how easy it is for actors to perform moral behaviors. The results suggest that imperfect duty behaviors revised previous negative impressions more easily than perfect duty behaviors. In addition, intention, but not affect, partially mediated the relationship between moral violation type and moral attributions. Further implications are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Ashoka University, Sonipat, India

    Sieun An

  2. New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

    Michael J. Marks & David Trafimow

  3. Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada

    Mark Fedyk

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  1. Sieun An
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  2. Michael J. Marks
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  3. David Trafimow
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  4. Mark Fedyk
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Correspondence to Sieun An.

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An, S., Marks, M.J., Trafimow, D. et al. Bad people doing good things: Attributions about people with immoral traits. Curr Psychol 40, 3440–3449 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00292-z

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