Book chapter
Social Role Expectations and Power Distance in Everyday Moral Blame Judgments
Handbook of Social Psychology. Vol. 1 Micro perspective, pp.197-207
Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, Springer, Third edition
2025
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-93042-3_13
Abstract
Judgments regarding acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and their corresponding sanctions, are crucial for maintaining social order. Traditional research on moral judgment has primarily focused on actions as the main stimulus for judgments. This chapter introduces a social psychological approach to understanding the assignment of moral blame, proposing that information about social roles generates expectations for acceptable and unacceptable behaviors and is an understudied factor in moral judgment. We analyze 1500 narratives of interpersonal conflict from an online forum where users vote to determine blame. Using a quantitative representation of cultural meaning of interactants’ social roles, we find that in situations with a large power difference, voters more often assign blame to the high-power individual regardless of who frames the narrative.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Social Role Expectations and Power Distance in Everyday Moral Blame Judgments
- Creators
- Regan Smock - University of IowaYongren ShiSteven Hitlin
- Contributors
- Jan E. Stets (Editor)Karen A. Hegtvedt (Editor)Long Doan (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- Handbook of Social Psychology. Vol. 1 Micro perspective, pp.197-207
- Edition
- Third edition
- Series
- Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-031-93042-3_13
- eISSN
- 2542-839X
- ISSN
- 1389-6903
- Publisher
- Springer; Cham
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2025
- Academic Unit
- Sociology and Criminology
- Record Identifier
- 9984966542102771
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