Observers’ motivated sensitivity to stigmatized actors’ intent

Does a harmful act appear more intentional–and worthy of opprobrium–if it was committed by a member of a stigmatized group? In two studies (N = 1,451), participants read scenarios in which an actor caused a homicide. We orthogonally manipulated the relative presence or absence of distal intent (a focus on the end) and proximal intent (a focus on the means) in the actor’s mind. We also varied the actor’s racial (Study 1) or political (Study 2) group. In both studies, participants judged the stigmatized actor more harshly than the non-stigmatized actor when the actor’s level of intent was ambiguous (i.e., one form of intent was high and the other form of intent was low). These data suggest that observers apply a sliding threshold when judging an actor’s intent and moral responsibility; whereas less-stigmatized actors elicit condemnation only when they cause the outcome with both types of intent in mind, more-stigmatized actors elicit condemnation when only one type, or even neither type (Study 2) of intent is in their mind. We discuss how these results enrich the literature on lay theories of intentionality.