IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jeurec/v22y2024i5p2075-2107..html

Nastiness in Groups

Author

Listed:
  • Michal Bauer
  • Jana Cahlíková
  • Dagmara Celik Katreniak
  • Julie Chytilová
  • Lubomír Cingl
  • Tomáš Želinský

Abstract

This paper provides evidence showing that people are more prone to engage in nasty behavior, malevolently causing financial harm to other people at own costs, when they make decisions in a group context rather than when making choices individually on their own. We establish this behavioral regularity in a series of large-scale experiments among university students, adolescents, and nationally representative samples of adults—more than ten thousand subjects in total. We test several potential mechanisms, and the results suggest that individual nasty inclinations are systematically more likely to affect behavior when decisions are made under the “cover” of a group, that is, in a group decision-context that creates a perception of diffused responsibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Michal Bauer & Jana Cahlíková & Dagmara Celik Katreniak & Julie Chytilová & Lubomír Cingl & Tomáš Želinský, 2024. "Nastiness in Groups," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(5), pages 2075-2107.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jeurec:v:22:y:2024:i:5:p:2075-2107.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeea/jvad072
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tamar Kugler & Edgar E. Kausel & Martin G. Kocher, 2012. "Are Groups more Rational than Individuals? A Review of Interactive Decision Making in Groups," CESifo Working Paper Series 3701, CESifo.
    2. Sanjaya, Muhammad Ryan, 2023. "Antisocial behavior in experiments: What have we learned from the past two decades?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 104-115.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Vicente Martínez-Tur & Vicente Peñarroja & Miguel A Serrano & Vanesa Hidalgo & Carolina Moliner & Alicia Salvador & Adrián Alacreu-Crespo & Esther Gracia & Agustín Molina, 2014. "Intergroup Conflict and Rational Decision Making," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Faralla, Valeria & Borà, Guido & Innocenti, Alessandro & Novarese, Marco, 2020. "Promises in group decision making," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 1-11.
    3. Ramm, Joachim & Tjøtta, Sigve & Torsvik, Gaute, 2013. "Incentives and creativity in groups," Working Papers in Economics 06/13, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    4. Hal R. Arkes & John H. Kagel & Dimitry Mezhvinsky, 2017. "Effects of a Management–Labor Context and Team Play on Ultimatum Game Outcomes," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(4), pages 993-1011, April.
    5. Jauernig, Johanna & Uhl, Matthias & Valentinov, Vladislav, 2021. "The ethics of corporate hypocrisy: An experimental approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 131.
    6. Xiaohong Yu & Zhaoyang Sun, 2022. "The company they keep: When and why Chinese judges engage in collegiality," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 936-1002, December.
    7. Mathieu Chevrier & Vincent Teixeira, 2024. "Algorithm Delegation and Responsibility: Shifting Blame to the Programmer?," GREDEG Working Papers 2024-04, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France, revised Sep 2024.
    8. Chaudhuri, Ananish & Paichayontvijit, Tirnud & Shen, Lifeng, 2013. "Gender differences in trust and trustworthiness: Individuals, single sex and mixed sex groups," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 181-194.
    9. Gavin Nicholson & Abdallah Bader Mahmoud Al-Zoubi, 2024. "The effect of decision recommendations and approval expectations on directors’ decision control: an experimental investigation of anchoring effects," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 437-465, September.
    10. Muehlheusser, Gerd & Roider, Andreas & Wallmeier, Niklas, 2015. "Gender differences in honesty: Groups versus individuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 25-29.
    11. Jingjing Zhang, 2012. "Communication in asymmetric group competition over public goods," ECON - Working Papers 069, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    12. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    13. Lukas Meub & Till Proeger, 2018. "Are groups ‘less behavioral’? The case of anchoring," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 117-150, August.
    14. Bizer, Kilian & Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till & Spiwoks, Markus, 2014. "Strategic coordination in forecasting: An experimental study," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 195, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    15. Florian Englmaier & Andreas Roider & Lars Schlereth & Steffen Sebastian, 2023. "Round-Number Effects in Real Estate Prices: Evidence from Germany," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 446, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    16. Maria Karmeliuk & Martin G. Kocher & Georg Schmidt, 2022. "Teams and individuals in standard auction formats: decisions and emotions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(5), pages 1327-1348, November.
    17. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Kocher, Martin & Sutter, Matthias, 2014. "Revealed distributional preferences: Individuals vs. teams," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 319-330.
    18. Max Albert & Andreas Hildenbrand, 2016. "Industrial Organization and Experimental Economics: How to Learn from Laboratory Experiments," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 135-156, August.
    19. Proeger, Till & Meub, Lukas & Bizer, Kilian, 2017. "The role of communication on an experimental market for tradable development rights," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 614-624.
    20. Müller, Wieland & Tan, Fangfang, 2013. "Who acts more like a game theorist? Group and individual play in a sequential market game and the effect of the time horizon," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 658-674.

    More about this item

    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:oup:jeurec:v:22:y:2024:i:5:p:2075-2107.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jeea .

    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.