Are judgments of praise for moral behavior modulated by knowledge of an agent's past suffering at the hands of others, and if so, in what direction? Drawing on multiple lines of research in experimental social psychology, we identify three hypotheses about the psychology of praise — typecasting, handicapping, and non-historicism — each of which supports a different answer to the question above. Typecasting predicts that information about past suffering will augment perceived patiency and thereby diminish perceived agency, making altruistic actions seem less praiseworthy; handicapping predicts that this information will make altruistic actions seem more effortful, and hence more praiseworthy; and non-historicism predicts that judgments of praise will be insensitive to information about an agent's experiential history. We report the results of two studies suggesting that altruistic behavior tends to attract more praise when the experiential history of the agent involves coping with adversity in childhood rather than enjoying prosperity (Study 1, N = 348, p = .03, d = 0.45; Study 2, N = 400, p = .02, d = 0.39), as well as the results of a third study suggesting that altruistic behavior tends to be evaluated more favorably when the experiential history of the agent includes coping with adversity than in the absence of information about the agent's past experience (N = 226, p = .002). This pattern of results, we argue, is more consistent with handicapping than typecasting or non-historicism.

对道德行为的表扬判断是否由对代理人过去在他人手中遭受的痛苦的了解来调节，如果是，则是在什么方向？借鉴实验社会心理学的多方面研究，我们确定了关于赞美心理学的三个假设——类型转换、障碍和非历史主义——每个假设都支持对上述问题的不同答案。类型转换预测，有关过去痛苦的信息会增强感知到的耐心，从而减少感知到的能动性，使利他行为显得不那么值得称赞；障碍预测这些信息将使利他行为看起来更费力，因此更值得称赞；和非历史主义预测表扬的判断将对有关代理的经验历史的信息不敏感。我们报告了两项研究的结果，表明当代理人的经历涉及应对童年时期的逆境而不是享受繁荣时，利他行为往往会吸引更多的赞誉（研究 1，N  = 348，p  = .03，d  = 0.45；研究 2, N  = 400, p  = .02, d  = 0.39)，以及第三项研究的结果表明，当代理人的经历包括应对逆境时，利他行为往往会得到更有利的评价。缺乏关于代理人过去经验的信息（N = 226，p  = .002）。我们认为，与类型转换或非历史主义相比，这种结果模式更符合障碍。