When negligence triggers moral outrage: Response strategies, consequence severity, and public appraisals

This study investigated how response strategies and consequence severity shaped moral outrage in medical negligence crises. A 3 (response strategy: uncaring vs. action accommodation [AA] vs. moral outrage accommodation [MOA]) × 2 (consequence severity: high vs. low) experiment with 377 participants was conducted. Results showed that severity heightened perceptions of offensiveness and moral outrage. Compared with an uncaring response, the AA strategy consistently reduced perceived responsibility, offensiveness, and moral outrage while enhancing perceived virtuousness. Although the MOA strategy also mitigated outrage and increased virtuousness, it paradoxically elevated responsibility and offensiveness relative to AA. Interaction effects indicated that accommodative strategies were most effective under low-severity conditions, though AA retained advantages across both levels of consequence severity. Path analyses revealed complementary SCCT and REMREP mechanisms, with offensiveness emerging as the most consistent predictor of moral outrage. These findings refine Image Repair Theory and establish consequence severity as a third situational intensifier in SCCT, offering practical guidance for tailoring crisis responses in medical negligence crises. • Consequence severity can independently trigger moral outrage in unintentional crises such as medical negligence. • This study positions consequence severity as the third situational intensifier in SCCT, alongside crisis history and prior reputation. • Accommodative strategies differ in effectiveness: action accommodation (AA) consistently outperforms moral outrage accommodation (MOA) in human-error crises. • Consequence severity diminishes the protective effects of accommodative strategies, though AA retains relative advantages. • Path analyses reveal complementary SCCT and REMREP mechanisms, with offensiveness emerging as the most consistent predictor of moral outrage.