IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11031.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Partners in Crime: Diffusion of Responsibility in Antisocial Behaviors

Author

Listed:
  • Behnk, Sascha

    (University of Zurich)

  • Hao, Li

    (University of Arkansas, Fayetteville)

  • Reuben, Ernesto

    (New York University, Abu Dhabi)

Abstract

Using a series of sender-receiver games, we find that two senders acting together are willing to behave more antisocially towards the receiver than single senders. This result is robust in two contexts: when antisocial messages are dishonest and when they are honest but unfavorable. Our results suggest that diffusion of responsibility is the primary reason for the increased antisocial behavior as our experimental design eliminates competing explanations. With a partner in crime, senders think that behaving antisocially is more acceptable and experience less guilt. Importantly, we identify a crucial condition for the increased antisocial behavior by groups: the partner in crime must actively participate in the decision-making. Our results have important implications for institutional design and promoting prosocial behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Behnk, Sascha & Hao, Li & Reuben, Ernesto, 2017. "Partners in Crime: Diffusion of Responsibility in Antisocial Behaviors," IZA Discussion Papers 11031, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11031
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11031.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Campos-Mercade, Pol, 2022. "When are groups less moral than individuals?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 20-36.
    2. Radu Vranceanu & Delphine Dubart, 2019. "Experimental evidence on deceitful communication: does everyone have a price ?," Working Papers hal-01822814, HAL.
    3. Vranceanu, Radu & Dubart, Delphine, 2019. "Deceitful communication in a sender-receiver experiment: Does everyone have a price?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 43-52.
    4. Maaser, Nicola & Stratmann, Thomas, 2024. "Costly voting in weighted committees: The case of moral costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. Shuguang Jiang & Marie Claire Villeval, 2024. "Dishonesty as a collective‐risk social dilemma," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 223-241, January.
    6. Brütt, Katharina & Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 2020. "Endogenous group formation and responsibility diffusion: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-31.
    7. Despoina Alempaki & Gönül Doğan & Silvia Saccardo, 2019. "Deception and reciprocity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(4), pages 980-1001, December.
    8. Lan Yao & Chong Zhou, 2023. "Group lying with negative externality," International Studies of Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(2), pages 184-192, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    moral norms; antisocial behavior; diffusion of responsibility; guilt aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11031. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.