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This studied how subtle linguistic wording in accident descriptions influences the allocation of blame and punishment.

Researchers manipulated wording in the accidents into either: agentive or nonagentive verbs. For example, he ripped the costume (agentive) versus the costume ripped (nonagentive) or she toppled the candle (agentive) versus the candle toppled (nonagentive).

Some previous research was highlighted.

First is that “people are more likely to remember the agent of an event when primed with agentive language than when primed with nonagentive language” (p644).

• >190k criminal court trials between 1674 & 1913 were evaluated based on language. Cases with agentive phrases (e.g. burned it rather than it burned, broke it instead of it broke) resulted in greater numbers of guilty verdicts (76%) compared to nonagentive phrases (70% guilty).
• Saying killed rather than died was associated with higher guilty verdicts (65% guilty vs 56% guilty).
• It’s said that these examples “suggest that agentivity may be part of a suite of linguistic cues that are influential in legal reasoning” (p645).

However, as the authors argue, higher agency in the descriptions may be associated with higher guilty verdicts or it’s also possible that agentive language may have been more likely to be used in cases where the defendant was more guilty.

Three studies were used to help elucidate conditions around agency and blame.

Methodology & Results

Study 1:

Participants in this study read about an accident restaurant fire. Two descriptions were given and the only difference was agentive verbs about the role of Mrs Smith. Linguistic framing significantly impacted the outcomes where participants who read the agentive account were more likely to blame Mrs Smith than did participants who read the nonagentive account.

Quoting the paper, “A subtle difference in language caused a big difference in dollars: Participants who got the agentive report ruled that Mrs. Smith should pay $247 (36%) more in fines.

Linguistic framing influenced people’s judgements on the financial liability. Authors reason that perhaps because Mrs Smith was blamed more harshly, she was also held more liable financially. Because the impact of language on financial liability may be indirect, study 2 sought to see if there was any direct relationship between the factors.

Study 2

This study also used agentive or nonagentive accident descriptions but also learnt of a blame attribution generated by an independent review panel (which allocated low, middle or high blame to the person involved).

The degree of blame assigned by the independent panel influenced judgements of participants on financial liability. Participants believed Mrs Smith should pay more in damages when the independent panel held her to be highly of blame compared to situations where the panel found her to be lowly or moderately of blame.

Language also influenced financial liability such that Mrs Smith was liable for $153 (26%) more in damages in cases where participants got the agentive description.

Guilt and linguistic framing independently influenced how much somebody was liable to pay for accidental properly damage, and increasing assigned blame led to greater financial liability.

It’s said that studies 1 and 2 both support each other. Linguistic differences influenced how people attributed blame and financial liability but as noted, the only info that the participants had to use was linguistic. Study 3 sought to test whether other sources of data, using a video clip of the Justin Timberlake / Janet Jackson stage event, in conjunction with written descriptions of the event.

Study 3

As expected, linguistic framing affected judgements of blame & financial liability in all of the conditions, and this didn’t matter whether the info was presented before, after or without video evidence. People more often blamed Timberlake after reading agentive descriptions compared with nonagentive (i.e. Timberlake ripped the costume versus the costume ripped).

Language also influenced attributions of chance, where people attributed the outcome more to chance after reading nonagentive descriptions (43% of cases) compared to the role of chance in agentive cases (33% of cases).

Timberlake was also judged to owe more money depending on agentive framing.

In discussing the findings, all studies consistently found agency influenced participants’ judgements on blame and punishment and financial liability was strongly affected by linguistic framing.

To quote, “Agentive descriptions led to 30%–50% more in requested financial damages than did nonagentive descriptions” (p648).

Further, the authors note that “linguistic framing can have an influence not only on verdicts of guilt and innocence, but also on the sentencing process” (p648).

Furthermore, even when people have prior knowledge of events (i.e. the Timberlake/Jackson event) and have visual information to bolster their understanding, linguistic framing still significantly shapes how “they construe and reason about what happened” (p649).

Authors: Caitlin M. Fausey and Lera Boroditsky, 2010, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

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Study link: https://doi.org/10.3758/pbr.17.5.644

Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/subtle-linguistic-cues-influence-perceived-blame-ben-hutchinson