Attributional and attentional patterns in the perception of ambiguous harmful encounters involving peer and authority figures

BACKGROUND Self-construal influences the way people ascribe blame to victims, but it is not clear whether the same applies to harm doers, especially those in a position of authority. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE We examined (N N = 122, men n = 60) participants' ascriptions of both blame and intentionality to harm doers (authority figure versus peer) while priming self-construal (relational versus individual self). Using eye-tracking, we explored whether priming relational self, compared to individual self, affects the allocation of attention to faces versus objects. RESULTS Although no effects of priming were found, the type of harm doer influenced the way people interpreted harmful social encounters. Participants attributed both greater intentionality and blame to peer than authority perpetrators. Also, in the case of peer perpetrators, blame ascription was higher than judgements of intentionality, which was the opposite pattern for authority perpetrators, where judgements of intentionality were greater than ascribed blame. In regard to encoding, participants independently of the type of harm doer looked significantly longer at faces than at objects in violent scenes. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest the status of perpetrator influences judgements of harm independently of intrapersonal factors, such as primed self-construal. Moreover, people perceived as authority figures are not blamed for the hurtful action, despite attributed intentionality.