IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13383.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Moral Transgressions by Groups: What Drives Individual Voting Behavior?

Author

Listed:
  • Feess, Eberhard

    (Victoria University of Wellington)

  • Kerzenmacher, Florian

    (University of Innsbruck)

  • Muehlheusser, Gerd

    (University of Hamburg)

Abstract

We conduct an experiment where subjects are matched in groups of three and vote on a moral transgression. Analyzing different voting rules, the frequency of votes for the moral transgression increases with the number of votes required for it. This effect persists when considering pivotal votes only, which eliminates opportunities to save on own moral costs and to rely instead on sufficiently many votes for the transgression by other group members. A series of novel treatments allows us to identify guilt sharing and preferences for consensual voting as empirically relevant and independent drivers of voting behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Feess, Eberhard & Kerzenmacher, Florian & Muehlheusser, Gerd, 2020. "Moral Transgressions by Groups: What Drives Individual Voting Behavior?," IZA Discussion Papers 13383, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13383
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13383.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Kirchler & Jürgen Huber & Matthias Stefan & Matthias Sutter, 2016. "Market Design and Moral Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(9), pages 2615-2625, September.
    2. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    3. Casal, Sandro & Fallucchi, Francesco & Quercia, Simone, 2019. "The role of morals in three-player ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 67-79.
    4. Martin G. Kocher & Simeon Schudy & Lisa Spantig, 2018. "I Lie? We Lie! Why? Experimental Evidence on a Dishonesty Shift in Groups," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 3995-4008, September.
    5. Rothenhäusler, Dominik & Schweizer, Nikolaus & Szech, Nora, 2018. "Guilt in voting and public good games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 664-681.
    6. Björn Bartling & Urs Fischbacher, 2012. "Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 67-87.
    7. Dan Ariely & Anat Bracha & Stephan Meier, 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 544-555, March.
    8. Steffen Huck & Kai A. Konrad, 2005. "Moral Cost, Commitment, and Committee Size," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 161(4), pages 575-588, December.
    9. Gächter, Simon & Gerhards, Leonie & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2017. "The importance of peers for compliance with norms of fair sharing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 72-86.
    10. Dato, Simon & Feess, Eberhard & Nieken, Petra, 2019. "Lying and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 193-218.
    11. A Falk & T Neuber & N Szech, 2020. "Diffusion of Being Pivotal and Immoral Outcomes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(5), pages 2205-2229.
    12. Conrads, Julian & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rilke, Rainer Michael & Walkowitz, Gari, 2013. "Lying and team incentives," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-7.
    13. Gerber, Anke & Neitzel, Jakob & Wichardt, Philipp C., 2013. "Minimum participation rules for the provision of public goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 209-222.
    14. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Saxler, David J., 2019. "The role of social information, market framing, and diffusion of responsibility as determinants of socially responsible behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 141-161.
    15. Regine Oexl & Zachary Grossman, 2013. "Shifting the blame to a powerless intermediary," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 306-312, September.
    16. Peeters, Ronald & Vorsatz, Marc & Walzl, Markus, 2015. "Beliefs and truth-telling: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-12.
    17. Laurent Bouton & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Frédéric Malherbe, 2018. "Get Rid of Unanimity Rule: The Superiority of Majority Rules with Veto Power," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 107-149.
    18. Wiltermuth, Scott S., 2011. "Cheating more when the spoils are split," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 157-168, July.
    19. Jason Dana & Roberto Weber & Jason Kuang, 2007. "Exploiting moral wiggle room: experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(1), pages 67-80, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Feess, Eberhard & Kerzenmacher, Florian & Timofeyev, Yuriy, 2022. "Utilitarian or deontological models of moral behavior—What predicts morally questionable decisions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    2. Lina Restrepo-Plaza & Enrique Fatas, 2023. "Building inclusive institutions in polarized scenarios," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 88-110, March.
    3. Rilke, Rainer Michael & Danilov, Anastasia & Weisel, Ori & Shalvi, Shaul & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2021. "When leading by example leads to less corrupt collaboration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 288-306.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Feess, Eberhard & Kerzenmacher, Florian & Muehlheusser, Gerd, 2023. "Morally questionable decisions by groups: Guilt sharing and its underlying motives," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 380-400.
    2. Behnk, Sascha & Hao, Li & Reuben, Ernesto, 2022. "Shifting normative beliefs: On why groups behave more antisocially than individuals," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    3. Feess, Eberhard & Kerzenmacher, Florian & Timofeyev, Yuriy, 2022. "Utilitarian or deontological models of moral behavior—What predicts morally questionable decisions?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    4. Feess, Eberhard & Schilling, Thomas & Timofeyev, Yuriy, 2023. "Misreporting in teams with individual decision making: The impact of information and communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 509-532.
    5. Florian Engl, 2020. "Ideological Motivation and Group Decision-Making," CESifo Working Paper Series 8742, CESifo.
    6. Vecchi, Martina, 2022. "Groups and socially responsible production: An experiment with farmers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 372-392.
    7. Muehlheusser, Gerd & Promann, Timo & Roider, Andreas & Wallmeier, Niklas, 2024. "Honesty of Groups: Effects of Size and Gender Composition," IZA Discussion Papers 16954, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Sanjit Dhami, 2017. "Human Ethics and Virtues: Rethinking the Homo-Economicus Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 6836, CESifo.
    9. Maaser, Nicola & Stratmann, Thomas, 2024. "Costly voting in weighted committees: The case of moral costs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    10. Battiston, Pietro & Gamba, Simona & Rizzolli, Matteo & Rotondi, Valentina, 2021. "Lies have long legs cheating, peer scrutiny and loyalty in teams," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    11. 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.
    12. Rilke, Rainer Michael & Danilov, Anastasia & Weisel, Ori & Shalvi, Shaul & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2021. "When leading by example leads to less corrupt collaboration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 288-306.
    13. Campos-Mercade, Pol, 2022. "When are groups less moral than individuals?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 20-36.
    14. Dato, Simon & Nieken, Petra & Feess, Eberhard, 2024. "Lying in Competitive Environments: Identifying Behavioral Impacts," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302385, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Lohse, Tim & Simon, Sven A., 2021. "Compliance in teams – Implications of joint decisions and shared consequences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    16. 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.
    17. Schwaninger, Manuel, 2022. "Sharing with the powerless third: Other-regarding preferences in dynamic bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 341-355.
    18. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    19. Di Cagno, Daniela & Güth, Werner & Lohse, Tim & Marazzi, Francesca & Spadoni, Lorenzo, 2024. "Who cares when Value (Mis)reporting may be found out? An Acquiring-a-Company experiment with value messages and information leaks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    20. Zachary Grossman, 2014. "Strategic Ignorance and the Robustness of Social Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2659-2665, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    group decisions; unethical behavior; experiment; voting; diffusion of responsibility; guilt sharing; donations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    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:dp13383. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.