Cognitive Blame Is Socially Shaped

Blame is not only a cognitive process but also a social act of moral criticism. Such acts of criticism often serve to correct a transgressor’s behavior but can be costly—to the moral critic, the transgressor, and the community. To limit these costs, blame is socially regulated: Communities set standards of evidence for blame and expect individuals to provide warrant, or justification, for their expressed judgments by pointing to appropriate evidence. We describe the path model of blame, which captures the cognitive processes that underlie blame judgments and that specify the kind of evidence that counts as warrant for blame. We then show how the varying costs of blaming put social pressure on the moral critic to be accurate and fair. We also identify conditions under which these pressures are weakened and standards of evidence decline: for example, when the transgressor has low status or is an out-group member, when the critic has high status or is anonymous, or when interactions are online. We close with numerous open questions that we hope will inspire further research into the hypothesis that cognitive blame is socially shaped.