The Blame Intensity Inventory: Assessing the Propensity to Blame Harshly and Its Unique Capacity to Predict Malicious Satisfaction From Offender Victimization.

Blame permeates our social lives. When done properly, blame can facilitate the upholding of moral norms. When done with excessive intensity or harshness, however, blame can have significant negative impacts. Here, we develop and validate a scale-the Blame Intensity Inventory-to measure individual differences in the propensity for intense blame responses. First, we present evidence for its convergent and divergent validity by examining relations with existing scales. In addition, in two studies, we show that the Blame Intensity Inventory-rooted in an affective conception of blame-predicts hostile responses to offenders better than do measures focused on blame-related cognitive appraisals (e.g., free will, intentionality). Finally, in three studies, we show that Blame Intensity uniquely predicts malicious satisfaction, or gratification upon learning that an offender has suffered gratuitous harm. Results are discussed in terms of important research questions that could be addressed using the Blame Intensity Inventory.

He never willed to have the will he has: Historicist narratives, "civilized" blame, and the need to distinguish two notions of free will.

Harsh blame can be socially destructive. This article examines how harsh blame can be "civilized." A core construct here is the historicist narrative, which is a story-like account of how a person came to be the sort of person she is. We argue that historicist narratives regarding immoral actors can temper blame and that this happens via a novel mechanism. To illuminate that mechanism, we offer a novel theoretical perspective on lay beliefs about free will. We distinguish 2 senses of free will: (a) Freedom of action, which portrays the will as a dynamic choice-making mechanism and concerns whether the actor can exert volitional control via that mechanism at the time of action, and (b) Control of self-formation, which portrays the will as an enduring disposition (e.g., persistent desire to humiliate) and refers to whether the actor is truly the source of that disposition. Six experiments show that historicist narratives have no effect on perceived freedom of action, but rather temper blame by reducing perceived self-formative control. We also provide evidence against several additional theoretically derived alternative mediators (e.g., intentionality, perceived suffering). Further underlining the need to distinguish free will concepts, we show that biological narratives-unlike historicist narratives-temper blame via reductions in perceived freedom of action. Finally, to illuminate the meaning of "civilized" blame," we show that historicist narratives specifically reduce the urge to inflict spiteful punishments on offenders, but leave intact the urge to nonviolently guide the offender toward moral improvement. (PsycINFO Database Record