Redress and conscientiousness in the attribution of responsibility for accidents

Abstract Two experiments were conducted to test the possibility that greater attributed responsibility to persons potentially at fault for severe accidents reflects a greater perceived necessity for compensation of the victim of the accident. Experiment I was a 2 × 2 factorial design in which the severity of the accident's consequences and whether or not the stimulus person had insurance that compensated the victim were varied. Contrary to previous findings (Walster, 1966) , there were no differences in attributed responsibility based on the severity of the consequences. Regardless of the severity, less responsibility was attributed when the stimulus person had insurance that provided redress than when he carried no insurance. Experiment II showed that this latter finding was not due to provision of compensation, but rather to the fact that the stimulus person had carried insurance. Possible reasons for the failure to replicate findings of severity-dependent attributed responsibility were discussed.