TY - GEN
T1 - Perceived Momentum Influences Responsibility Judgments
AU - Parker, Jeffrey R.
AU - Paul, Iman
AU - Reinholtz, Nicholas
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the participants in the CB Group at Georgia Tech University for their invaluable feedback on this project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - This work examines the extent to which people hold independent sequential events (e.g., players making correct/incorrect guesses) responsible for overall outcomes (e.g., the team winning/losing the game). Two types of events are found to garner the majority of responsibility for overall outcomes: (1) final events and (2) events that are perceived to disrupt momentum (e.g., an incorrect guess after a sequence of correct guesses). While previous research has shown that final events tend to be perceived as more responsible for overall outcomes, the current experiments are the first to document the role of perceived momentum on responsibility judgments. Specifically, we demonstrate that the effect is mediated by perceived momentum changes after the time of the event and moderated when exogenous factors (e.g., a delay between events) disrupt perceived momentum. We discuss how these findings relate to pivotality, the counterfactual simulation model, and the role of unexpectedness in responsibility judgments.
AB - This work examines the extent to which people hold independent sequential events (e.g., players making correct/incorrect guesses) responsible for overall outcomes (e.g., the team winning/losing the game). Two types of events are found to garner the majority of responsibility for overall outcomes: (1) final events and (2) events that are perceived to disrupt momentum (e.g., an incorrect guess after a sequence of correct guesses). While previous research has shown that final events tend to be perceived as more responsible for overall outcomes, the current experiments are the first to document the role of perceived momentum on responsibility judgments. Specifically, we demonstrate that the effect is mediated by perceived momentum changes after the time of the event and moderated when exogenous factors (e.g., a delay between events) disrupt perceived momentum. We discuss how these findings relate to pivotality, the counterfactual simulation model, and the role of unexpectedness in responsibility judgments.
KW - perceived causality
KW - perceived momentum
KW - responsibility judgments
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139241151&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85139241151
T3 - Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016
SP - 2225
EP - 2230
BT - Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016
A2 - Papafragou, Anna
A2 - Grodner, Daniel
A2 - Mirman, Daniel
A2 - Trueswell, John C.
PB - The Cognitive Science Society
T2 - 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016
Y2 - 10 August 2016 through 13 August 2016
ER -