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Partners in crime: Understanding diffuson of responsibility in antisocial behaviors

Seminars
DE
  2018-06-05 12:30

Castellón

This is the current abstract:
 
A growing body of research shows that people tend to act more antisocially in groups than alone. However, little is known on why partners in crime have such an effect on individuals. We design a novel sender-receiver game to shed light on the potential driving factors of this phenomenon, We find that the involvement of a second sender (i) impairs normative views, (ii) dilutes guilt aversion, and (iii) affects emotional states. Specifically, we show that in two-sender treatments not only senders but also receivers rate antisocial actions more acceptable than in one-sender treatments. Interestingly, senders even correctly anticipate receivers’ differential normative beliefs. Second, the presence of a partner in crime significantly reduces negative emotions from behaving antisocially as senders experience less guilt. Third, a necessary condition for this partner in crime effect is the partner’s active participation in the decision-making, as the effect dissipates when the second sender cannot influence final payoffs. Our results suggest that diffusion of responsibility is the primary reason behind this pattern as our experimental design eliminates competing explanations.
 


 
 
 
 
 

 

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  • 2018-06-05 12:30

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