Group moral discount: Diffusing blame when judging group members

Abstract

People lie more when they work as a group rather than alone. However, do people suspect and morally evaluate groups and individuals differently when they are suspiciously successful? In four experiments, we examine whether (a) suspiciously successful individuals and groups are judged and punished differently and (b) individual group members are judged differently from the group as one unit. Results suggest that people suspect successful groups and individuals to the same extent. However, group members are less likely to be suspected, judged negatively, punished, and reported on, when they are judged as separate individuals compared with as a group. The findings demonstrate a bias in judgment of group members, stemming from the method of evaluation—holistic or separate. We suggest that in order to minimize bias when judging misconduct by a group, the moral evaluation and punishment of all group members should be considered simultaneously.

Everyone should get the same, but we should get more: Group entitlement and intergroup moral double standard

“…One explanation could be that emotions do play a mediating role, but not the emotions we examined, that is, anger, hatred, sadness. Another explanation would be that another process suppressed the mediation through moral emotions, for example, diffusion of responsibility )Bandura, Underwood, & Fromson, 1975; Vainapel, Weisel, Zultan, & Shalvi, 2019). It is possible that participants thought there was a norm of double standard and their change of answer would not matter.…”

Diffusion of punishment in collective norm violations

“…These may bias second parties to attribute heightened intent and causal responsibility, even for groups, which could mask the diffusion of punishment. Another study about punishing cheaters showed that group violators are considered less dishonest than individual ones, but differences in judgments of deserved punishment were not statistically significant ( p = 0.08) 18 .…”

Diffusion of Punishment in Collective Norm Violations

“…More recently, El Zein et al (2020) investigated second-party punishment in fairness-based group games but found no difference between proposed punishment for lone fairness violators compared with collective ones (El Zein et al, 2020). Another study of the punishment of cheaters showed that group actors were considered less dishonest than individual actors, but differences in judgments of deserved punishment were only marginally significant (p = .08; Vainapel et al, 2019).…”