Silver Benjamin M, Ochsner Kevin N
Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 USA.
Affect Sci. 2024 Aug 1;5(4):346-357. doi: 10.1007/s42761-024-00250-4. eCollection 2024 Dec.
During the #MeToo movement, the perceived morality of public figures changed in light of sexual assault allegations against them. Here, we asked how these changes were influenced by the perceived severity of alleged actions and by how well-known and well-liked were the public figures. Perceived morality was assessed by measuring (im)moral language usage in 1.4 million tweets about 50 male public figures accused of sexual assault. Using natural language processing to analyze the tweets, we found that liking of public figures mitigated perceived immorality for less severe allegations, but had little effect on perceived immorality for more severe allegations. The persistence of negative perceptions 1 year later was related to liking and familiarity for the public figure, not allegation severity. These results suggest that in real-world contexts, we can forgive less harmful actions for people we like, but may not be able to if their actions are more harmful; over time, however, liking for others predicts lasting negative impressions of their moral misdeeds.
在#MeToo运动期间，公众人物的道德形象因针对他们的性侵指控而发生了变化。在此，我们探讨了这些变化是如何受到所指控行为的严重程度以及公众人物的知名度和受欢迎程度影响的。通过测量140万条关于50名被指控性侵的男性公众人物的推文里（不）道德语言的使用情况来评估公众对他们道德的认知。利用自然语言处理技术分析这些推文，我们发现，对于不太严重的指控，公众人物的受欢迎程度会减轻人们对其不道德行为的认知，但对于更严重的指控则影响不大。一年后负面看法的持续存在与公众人物的受欢迎程度和熟悉程度有关，而非指控的严重程度。这些结果表明，在现实世界中，我们可能会原谅我们喜欢的人那些危害较小的行为，但如果他们的行为危害更大，我们可能就无法原谅；然而，随着时间的推移，对他人的喜欢会预示着对其道德过错的持久负面印象。
