Diffusion of being pivotal and immoral outcomes

Armin Falk and Nora Szech

No 111, Working Paper Series in Economics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management

Abstract: We study how the diffusion of being pivotal affects immoral outcomes. In a first set of experiments, subjects decide about agreeing to kill mice and receiving money versus objecting to kill mice and foregoing the monetary amount. In a baseline condition, subjects decide individually about the life of one mouse. In the main treatment, subjects are organized into groups of eight and decide simultaneously. Eight mice are killed if at least one subject supports the killing. The fraction of subjects agreeing to kill is significantly higher in the main condition compared to the baseline condition. In the second set of experiments, we run the same baseline and main conditions but use a charity context and additionally study sequential decisions. We replicate our main finding from the mouse paradigm and additionally show that in the sequential treatment, prosocial behavior is even less pronounced. We further show that the observed effects increase with experience, i.e., when we repeat the experiment for a second time. Finally, we report evidence on beliefs, elicited in our main experiments but also from a treatment of noninvolved observers, and show that beliefs about being pivotal are a main driver of our results.

Keywords: committees; diffusion of being pivotal; group decisions; morality; replacement logic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D01 D03 D23 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Diffusion of Being Pivotal and Immoral Outcomes (2020)
Working Paper: Diffusion of Being Pivotal and Immoral Outcomes (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:kitwps:111

DOI: 10.5445/IR/1000078280

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