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Cited by 14Psychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentEthics in Business and EducationPhilosophical Ethics and Theory

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 155 of the 155 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Principles of moral accounting: How our intuitive moral sense balances rights and wrongs

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Johnson, Samuel G.B., Ahn, Jaye·2021·Cognition
DOI 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104467
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Abstract

We are all saints and sinners: Some of our actions benefit others, while other actions lead to harm. How do people balance moral rights against moral wrongs when evaluating others' actions? Across 9 studies, we contrast the predictions of three conceptions of intuitive morality-outcome-based (utilitarian), act-based (deontologist), and person-based (virtue ethics) approaches. These experiments establish four principles: Partial offsetting (good acts can partly offset bad acts), diminishing sensitivity (the extent of the good act has minimal impact on its offsetting power), temporal asymmetry (good acts are more praiseworthy when they come after harms), and act congruency (good acts are more praiseworthy to the extent they offset a similar harm). These principles are difficult to square with utilitarian or deontological approaches, but sit well within person-based approaches to moral psychology. Inferences about personal character mediated many of these effects (Studies 1-4), explained differences across items and across individuals (Studies 5-6), and could be manipulated to produce downstream consequences on blame (Studies 7-9); however, there was some evidence for more modest roles of utilitarian and deontological processing too. These findings contribute to conversations about moral psychology and person perception, and may have policy and marketing implications.

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Metadata

Authors
Johnson, S. G. B., & Ahn, J.
Affiliations
  • University of Warwick (GB)
  • University of Minnesota (US)
Corresponding author
Johnson, Samuel G.B.
ORCID
Johnson, Samuel G.B.
Venue
Cognition
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-01
Volume
206
Pages
104467
ISSN
0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104467
OpenAlex
W3094136812
Cited by
14
References
150
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1
FWCI
0.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Cognition (publishedVersion)
  • PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
  • Pure (University of Bath) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Funders
University of Bath
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Ethics in Business and Education
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
Keywords
moral accounting, utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, time asymmetry, personal character, blame, person perception, moral evaluation
MeSH terms
Humans, Judgment, Morals

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Principles of moral accounting: How our intuitive moral sense balances rights and wrongs. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104467
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Johnson, S. G. B., & Ahn, J. (2021). Principles of moral accounting: How our intuitive moral sense balances rights and wrongs. Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104467

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.