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Children's Moral Evaluations of Ecological Damage: The Effect of Biocentric and Anthropocentric Intentions 1
Author(s) -
Kortenkamp Katherine V.,
Moore Colleen F.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2009.00504.x
Subject(s) - blame , anthropocentrism , psychology , social psychology , decision maker , proposition , environmental ethics , epistemology , operations research , mathematics , philosophy
Moral evaluations of ecologically damaging events were studied in 5 th , 8 th , and 11 th graders and college students ( N = 246). Participants made 4 kinds of judgments about 2 scenarios: decision rightness, damage rightness, blame of the decision maker, and blame of the agents causing the damage. In both scenarios, the decision maker's intentions varied (biocentric vs. anthropocentric) as did the damage severity. Overall, participants' judgments were less harsh when the decision maker had biocentric intentions and when the damage was less severe. However, there were age differences in use of intentions to judge decision rightness. The proposition that judgments of blame of the decision maker should be a joint function of decision and damage rightness was also supported.