Psychological Development and Education ›› 2014, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (3): 244-251.

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How Much Blame Your “Evil” Intention Deserves? The Strength of Intention Information Modulated Moral Judgment of Undergraduate Students

LI Xiao-jing1,2, LI Hong1   

  1. 1. Faculty of Psychological Science, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715;
    2. Mental Health Education and Consultation Center, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331
  • Online:2014-05-15 Published:2014-05-15

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Abstract: It's unstable for adults to make moral judgment of others' behaviors by using intention and outcomes information. According to the expectation of the two-process theory, Cushman proposed that people should combine the intention and outcome information to make moral judgment when serious negative outcome occurs, however, they will mainly focus on intention information in neutral outcome condition. By changing the pattern of sentences, the present study manipulated the salience of the intention in order to investigate whether or not the strength of intention information will modulate moral judgment of undergraduate students. The results showed that (1) participants made more moral condemnation about the neutral behavior when the negative intention information was emphasized; (2) The moral judgments was not affected by the salience of intention when participants made judgments on negative behaviors. Based on these findings, we argued that the intention information plays key role for moral judgment on neutral behaviors. More importantly, the moral condemnation to negative intention of undergraduate students depends on the salience of intention information.

Key words: College students, Intention, Moral judgment, The two-process theory

CLC Number: 

  • B844.3
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