Abstract

This study was conducted to determine how analytic-holistic thinking style, one of the cultural characteristics, affects intentionality judgment and what role the crime typicality plays in the process. To this end, the psychological mechanism of intentionality judgment was confirmed in cases where the criminal typicality was manipulated by the moral characteristics of the crime perpetrator and victim. As a result, higher the criminal typicality lead to higher intentionality judgement. In addition, it was found that people with relatively holistic thinking style (with high causality and perception of change) judge less of the perpetrator intentionality. In particular, it was confirmed that the analytic-holistic thinking style interacts with criminal typicality and affects the intentionality judgment. Specifically, people with a holistic thinking style (high causality) judged the perpetrator to have high intentionality in typical cases, but judged in a reverse way in atypical cases. It means that, holistic thinkers, compared to analytic thinkers, strongly judge intentionality based on criminal typicality considering the moral characteristics of not only the perpetrators but also the victims. Along with the significance of this study, the relationships among analytic-holistic thinking style, criminal typicality and intentionality judgment were discussed.