Account-Giving for a Corporate Transgression Influences Moral Judgment: When Those Who "Spin" Condone Harm-Doing

Generating some types of accounts-justifications, excuses, or apologies-for an organization's harm-doing increases condoning of a transgression compared with generating denials or not having to explain a transgression. In Experiment 1, students ( N = 324) were required either to explain a corporation's use of child labor to manufacture its products or merely to read about it. Explaining decreased condemnation of the offense compared with when no explanation was required. In Experiment 2, students ( N = 101) either justified the corporation's harm-doing or denied that the corporation had harmed employees, with justifications increasing condoning more than denials. In Experiment 3, students ( N = 113) either wrote an apology or wrote a denial, with apologizers condoning harm-doing more than deniers. Differences appear to be due to some accounts eliciting cognitive elaboration on the misdeed.