Selected projects

with Ann-Kathrin Koessler

with Tobias Vorlaufer and Ann-Kathrin Koessler

single authored project

with Pablo Soto-Mota 

Abstract

Why do individuals in groups tend to cause more harm than isolated individuals? This paper explores the mechanisms of diffusion of responsibility and social norms. Using an online experiment with 1,801 participants, we ask two questions: Are individuals in larger groups of culprits more willing to collaborate in generating harm? Do descriptive social norms affect the willingness to collaborate in generating harm? In the experiment, participants were pivotal in a group decision whether to eliminate a charity donation. They could benefit privately from favouring the elimination, though their individual decision was crucial for the group. We compared groups with different numbers of culprits and different strengths of the descriptive social norm. Congruent with the idea of diffusion of responsibility, we found that a larger proportion of participants were willing to cause harm in groups with more culprits. Likewise, as predicted by descriptive social norms, we found that participants were more likely to eliminate the donation when they knew that a larger proportion of individuals in their group had favoured eliminating it.