Violations of Out-Group and In-Group Regulations in the Eyes of Ordinary and Protected Prisoners: An Instance of Judgmental Modularity

Abstract

According to the functional theory of cognition, everyday life blaming for wrongdoing reflects individuals’functional morality. The judgments of normative people were found to be modular, that is, changeable as a function of the social role taken at the moment of the judgment. This article presents several empirical indications that prisoners’functional moral judgments are modular as well. These studies were conducted within the experimental framework of functional measurement, which was chosen due to its ability to bypass prisoners’suspicion and resistance to out-group investigations. The studies focus on delinquents’core moral issues such as eyewitness testimony and informing to out-group authorities. As expected, the judgments of ordinary and protected inmates were modular. It is claimed that these findings are applicable to offender rehabilitation and correction and to offender therapy.