2026 Articles

Contrasting Guilty Minds: Exposure to Contrast Concepts Narrows Conceptions of Acting Knowingly and Recklessly

Mott, Christian James; Solomon, Larisa Heiphetz

When one person harms another, the way lay jurors describe the perpetrator's mental state – whether they acted “knowingly” or “recklessly” – can significantly affect their culpability under United States criminal law. Five studies conducted in Fall 2017 show that the meanings of these crucial legal terms can shift depending on whether the jury instructions mention an alternative mental state. In Studies 1-3, lay participants, acting as mock jurors, were less likely to say an agent caused a harm “knowingly” when they could instead describe the person as acting “recklessly” – a less severe but still culpable state of mind. This pattern emerged whether or not participants received legal definitions of these terms. In Study 4, mock jurors were less likely to say an agent acted “knowingly” when “recklessly” appeared in the jury instructions as a contrast, even when they did not have any way to attribute the contrast term to the agent. In Study 5, mock jurors were also less likely to say an agent acted “recklessly” when the possibility of acting “negligently” appeared in the jury instructions. These studies provide evidence that “knowingly” and “recklessly” are contrast sensitive – that is, their meanings can shift based on what contrast concept is salient.

Keywords: blame; experimental jurisprudence; law and psychology; moral psychology; social cognition; social psychology