Affective and cognitive underpinnings of moral condemnation when news of transgressions goes viral.

= 3,939) test our model. Participants rated corporate transgressions to which they had or had not been repeatedly exposed from three sources (news outlets or individuals). Experiments 1 and 2 measured affective reactions, infamy inferences, and moral judgments, finding mediational support for our model. In Experiment 2 and two supplemental experiments, repetition reduced moral condemnation, suggesting that affective desensitization was the dominant process. Experiment 3 was designed to strengthen the infamy process by highlighting over a million negative reactions to each repeatedly seen transgression; consistent with our model, repetition no longer reduced moral condemnation but continued to dull affective reactions, suggesting that affective-desensitization and infamy-inference processes offset one another. By documenting these countervailing processes, our research deepens understanding of when, why, and how viral transgressions may impact public opinion and moral outrage. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).