How Communicating about Discrimination Influences Attributions of Blame and Condemnation

Across two randomized experiments, we examine how communication about discriminatory acts can influence judgments of blame and condemnation. Specifically, we consider whether attributing discrimination to implicit or explicit bias affects how people evaluate online reports of discrimination. In Study 1 (N = 947), we explore this question in the context of an online news environment, and in Study 2 (N = 121) we replicate our results on a social media site (i.e., Twitter). Across both studies, we document how viewers respond differently to reports of discrimination due to variation in agent motives, the type of bias that purportedly caused the discriminatory behavior, and the extent to which agents are reported to have completed implicit bias training. We discuss our theoretical contribution to perspectives of blame attribution and the communication of bias as well as the practical implications of our findings.

‘Enemies of the people’: Donald Trump and the security imaginary of America First

The discursive domain of (in)security is integral to nationalist populism, as documented in the political rhetoric of Donald Trump. This article combines insights from political psychology on blame attribution with scholarship in International Relations on security narratives to show how the reframing of national identity through a populist security imaginary elevated internal ‘enemies of the people’ to an ontological status of equal, or even superior standing to that of external threats to national security. Portraying internal and external Others as equally existential threats endangering the ‘real’ United States informed both foreign policy choices and mobilised voters through an affective persuasion of audiences, actively dividing society for political gain. Populist appeals to resentment, fear, and anxiety constituted a shared affective space between Trump and his followers that provided a source of mutual ontological reassurance and the legitimation of America First measures from immigration restrictions to trade protectionism and a Jacksonian foreign policy.

“Are you asking me or are you telling me?”: Expertise, evidence, and blame attribution in a post-game interview

This paper is an analysis of a video clip of an interview between a reporter and ice hockey player following a game in which the player was involved in a hard collision with a member of the opposing team. The paper explores blame attribution and how participants claim and disclaim expertise in a way that supports or undermines assertions to have correctly seen and assessed the actions shown on tape. Our analysis focuses on the video of the interview, and it also examines relevant video clips of the collision and various commentaries about the identities of the characters and their actions shown on the videos. In brief, the study is a third-order investigation of recorded-actions-under-analysis. It uses the videos and commentaries as “perspicuous phenomena” that illuminate and complicate how the members’ own action category analysis is bound up with issues of expertise, evidence, and blame.

Do Public Consultations Reduce Blame Attribution? The Impact of Consultation Characteristics, Gender, and Gender Attitudes

Can public consultations—gatherings organised to solicit constituent opinions—reduce the blame attributed to elected representatives whose decisions end up backfiring? Using two pre-registered survey experiments conducted on nationally representative samples of US respondents, we examine whether the effectiveness of consultations as a blame avoidance tool may be shaped by: (1) consultation characteristics, especially regarding whether or not representatives align their policies, either actively or passively, with constituent opinion; and (2) elected representative and constituent characteristics, especially regarding a representative’s gender and constituents’ gender attitudes. Results suggest that public consultations are indeed liable to decrease blame attribution, just so long as constituent opinion is not explicitly opposed to the representative’s decision. Active alignment with constituent opinion, however, does not appear to be a requirement for decreased blame attribution—and effects related to gender and gender attitudes are also largely absent. These findings are important for scholars seeking to better understand blame attribution, clarifying how public consultations might help politicians to pre-empt blame by reducing clarity of responsibility.

Affective Disgust Predicts Blame for Gay Male Homicide Victims

For certain crimes there is a tendency in the U.S. to blame individuals for their victimization. Previous work has shown that affective states can impact blame attribution. Drawing upon this work, the purpose of the current pre-registered research was to examine the relation between affective disgust and victim blame attribution. In Study 1, as participants’ (N = 203) level of implicit disgust associations with gay men increased, their tendency to blame a gay male homicide victim also increased, whereas their agreement that the homicide qualified as a hate crime decreased. In Study 2, disgust was experimentally induced by exposing participants (N = 431) to disgusting (e.g., vomit, insects) or neutral images (e.g., mug, stapler). Inducing disgust increased victim blame and decreased perceptions that the homicide constituted a hate crime. However, exploratory mediation analyses in both studies showed that the impact of disgust on hate crime applications is best explained as an indirect effect of victim blame. Taken together, these findings suggest that both individual differences in implicit gay-disgust and situational feelings of disgust may underlie people’s perceptions of how blameworthy a victim is for the crime committed against them.

Enacting Accountability Under Populist Pressures: Theorizing the Relationship Between Anti-Elite Rhetoric and Public Accountability

While populism challenges the pluralism and technocratic expertise on which public bureaucracies are based, extant scholarship has overlooked its effects on accountability processes. In particular, it neglects the impact of anti-elite rhetoric, characterized by what can be regarded as “emotionalized blame attribution,” on the thinking and behavior of accountability actors. Responding to this gap, this article examines the impact of this distinctive form of populist rhetoric on accountability relationships within the bureaucratic state. It identifies three “stages” whereby these populist pressures challenge accountability relationships, threaten the reputation of accountability actors, and result in alternative accountability practices. In doing so, the article provides a roadmap for assessing the impact of anti-elite rhetoric on accountability actions.

Partisan Selectivity in Blame Attribution: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Crises and disasters give voters an opportunity to observe the incumbent's response and reward or punish them for successes and failures. Yet even when voters agree on the facts, they tend to attribute responsibility in a group-serving manner, disproportionately crediting their party for positive developments and blaming opponents for negative developments. Using original time series data, we show that partisan disagreement over U.S. President Donald Trump's responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic quickly emerged alongside the pandemic's onset in March 2020. Three original survey experiments show that the valence of information about the country's performance against the virus contributes causally to such gaps. A Bayesian model of information processing anticipates our findings more closely than do theories of partisan-motivated reasoning. These findings shed new light on the foundations of partisan loyalty, especially among citizens who do not think of themselves as partisans.