Abstract

Moral typecasting is the tendency to categorize intentional perpetrators and suffering victims within moral interactions. We predicted a bias in typecasting, such that women are more easily typecast as victims and men as perpetrators. In Study 1, participants more readily assumed a harmed target was female than male, but especially when the targets were described as ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’. Study 2 participants typecast animated shapes perpetuating harm as male and victimized shapes as female. In Study 3, female victims were expected to experience more pain from an ambiguous joke and participants desired harsher punishments for male perpetrators. In Study 4, managers were perceived as less moral and fair when they fired a group of female (versus male) employees. Across four studies (N=1,319), harm was evaluated differently based on victim and perpetrator gender, suggesting a gender bias in moral typecasting.