Doctoral Dissertation Research: Vicarious Liability: The Underlying Roles of Blame and Collective Responsibility

就雇员造成的损害或伤害向雇主提出替代责任索赔是美国最常见的民事索赔之一。在替代责任案件中，不需要过错；即使是非常谨慎、没有过失的雇主也可以为员工承担责任？S的粗心大意的行为。美国、英国和澳大利亚的法律和商业评论员批评这种形式的责任不仅对雇主不公平，而且法院的适用也不一致。这项研究将考察受害者的亲和性、结果的严重性和群体实体性(即群体成员相互依赖和亲密的程度)，作为在商业背景下替代责任案件中法院判决不一致的可能心理解释。先前的研究表明，与不讨人喜欢的受害者相比，犯罪者因伤害讨人喜欢的人而受到更多指责，因此被赋予更大的法律责任。同样，当一个人的行为导致严重的结果时，他们受到的指责比同样的行为导致的不那么严重的结果更多。此外，当实体性很高时，责备往往从个人转移到他或她的社会群体。目前的研究旨在将重点从个人和社会群体扩大到包括商业情况。研究人员将对之前做出的州法院判决进行随机抽样分析，以确定心理因素是否可能影响了这些决定；进行一系列研究，以创建一种合理的责任衡量标准；并进行一项实验，让参与者在观看了一段心理因素被操纵的审判视频后，做出责任和替代责任的判断。这个博士研究项目扩展了我们对责任及其转移的理解，超越了个人(例如，刑事被告)和社会团体(例如，家庭)，包括企业，从而可能为未来的替代责任诉讼提供信息和指导。该项目涉及研究生和本科生，他们中的许多人来自代表性较低的群体。这些研究的结果将传播给法律界和心理学界，并可能为未来的替代责任诉讼提供信息和指导。

Vicarious liability claims against employers for damages or injuries caused by their employees are among the most common civil claims in the United States. In a vicarious liability case, no fault is required; even a perfectly careful, non-negligent employer can be held liable for an employee?s careless actions. Legal and business commentators in the U.S., U.K., and Australia have criticized this form of liability as not only unfair to employers, but also inconsistently applied by courts. This research will examine victim likeability, outcome severity, and group entitativity (i.e., the degree to which group members are interdependent and close) as possible psychological explanations for inconsistent court decisions in vicarious liability cases in the business context. Previous studies have shown that a perpetrator is blamed more, and is thereby assigned greater legal liability, for harming a likable compared to an unlikeable victim. Similarly, when a person's action results in a severe outcome, they are blamed more than if the same action results in a less severe outcome. Furthermore, blame is often "transferred" from an individual to his or her social group when entitativity is high. The current research aims to expand the focus from individuals and social groups to include business situations. The researchers will analyze a randomly selected sample of previously rendered state court decisions to determine whether the psychological factors might have influenced the decisions; run a series of studies to create a philosophically sound measure of blame; and run an experiment in which participants make blame and vicarious liability judgments after watching a video depiction of a trial in which the psychological factors are manipulated. This doctoral research project expands our understanding of blame and its transference beyond individuals (e.g., criminal defendants) and social groups (e.g., families) to include businesses, thereby potentially informing and guiding future vicarious liability litigation. The project involves graduate and undergraduate students, many of whom are from underrepresented groups, in research. Results from the studies will be disseminated to both the legal and psychological communities and may inform and guide future vicarious liability litigation.