Social Closeness and Decision Making: Moral, Attributive and Emotional Reactions to Third Party Transgressions

Decisions involving moral vectors are inherently social. This paper investigates social closeness to others as one of the important factors that mediate our evaluations of moral infractions. The influence of social closeness on participants?? third-party evaluations of moral transgressions was measured across development. Participants?? intentional attributions, punitive sentiments, moral judgments, and emotional reactions were measured using responses to hypothetical vignettes that describe socio-moral transgressions involving theft. Participants?? attribution judgments, punitive decisions, and emotional reactions differed when their social relationship with the perpetrator (Study One), and alternatively with the victim (Study Two), of the transgression was varied. Evidence is provided for the supposition that morality is a construct of social cooperative exchange and that social closeness influences socio-moral evaluations and judgments.