Effron Daniel A, Brady William J
Organisational Behaviour Subject Area, London Business School.
Department of Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2025 Sep;154(9):2553-2568. doi: 10.1037/xge0001791. Epub 2025 Jun 23.
When news of a transgression goes viral, people hear about it repeatedly from different news sources and individuals. How does this repeated exposure affect moral judgments of the transgression? We test a new theoretical model proposing that moral condemnation is influenced by competing affective and cognitive processes. Repeated exposure to the same information about a transgression dampens people's emotional responses, which can reduce moral condemnation (an process). However, repeated exposure from multiple sources also signals that the transgression is receiving widespread negative attention, which can increase moral condemnation (a cognitive process). These processes' net effect will depend on how strongly repetition dampens affect versus signals infamy. Five preregistered experiments ( = 3,939) test our model. Participants rated corporate transgressions to which they had or had not been repeatedly exposed from three sources (news outlets or individuals). Experiments 1 and 2 measured affective reactions, infamy inferences, and moral judgments, finding mediational support for our model. In Experiment 2 and two supplemental experiments, repetition reduced moral condemnation, suggesting that affective desensitization was the dominant process. Experiment 3 was designed to strengthen the infamy process by highlighting over a million negative reactions to each repeatedly seen transgression; consistent with our model, repetition no longer reduced moral condemnation but continued to dull affective reactions, suggesting that affective-desensitization and infamy-inference processes offset one another. By documenting these countervailing processes, our research deepens understanding of when, why, and how viral transgressions may impact public opinion and moral outrage. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
当违规行为的消息迅速传播开来时，人们会从不同的新闻来源和个人那里反复听到此事。这种反复接触会如何影响对该违规行为的道德判断呢？我们测试了一种新的理论模型，该模型提出道德谴责受到相互竞争的情感和认知过程的影响。反复接触关于同一违规行为的相同信息会减弱人们的情绪反应，这可能会减少道德谴责（一个情感过程）。然而，来自多个来源的反复接触也表明该违规行为正受到广泛的负面关注，这可能会增加道德谴责（一个认知过程）。这些过程的净效应将取决于重复减弱情感与表明声名狼藉的程度。五个预先注册的实验（N = 3939）对我们的模型进行了测试。参与者对他们是否从三个来源（新闻媒体或个人）反复接触过的企业违规行为进行评分。实验1和2测量了情感反应、声名狼藉的推断和道德判断，为我们的模型找到了中介支持。在实验2和两个补充实验中，重复减少了道德谴责，这表明情感脱敏是主导过程。实验3旨在通过突出对每个反复看到的违规行为的超过一百万个负面反应来强化声名狼藉的过程；与我们的模型一致，重复不再减少道德谴责，但继续减弱情感反应，这表明情感脱敏和声名狼藉推断过程相互抵消。通过记录这些相互抵消的过程，我们的研究加深了对违规行为迅速传播何时、为何以及如何可能影响公众舆论和道德义愤的理解。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
