People learn by observing others, albeit not uniformly. Witnessing an immoral behavior causes observers to commit immoral actions, especially when the perpetrator is part of the in-group. Does conformist behavior hold when observing the out-group? We conducted three experiments (N = 1,358) exploring how observing an (im)moral in-/out-group member changed decisions relating to justice: punitive, selfish, or dishonest choices. Only immoral in-groups increased immoral actions, while the same immoral behavior from out-groups had no effect (Experiments 1 & 2). In contrast, a compassionate or generous individual did not make people more moral, regardless of group membership (Experiments 1 & 2). When there was a loophole to deny cheating (Experiment 3), neither an immoral in-/out-group member changed dishonest behavior. Compared to observing an honest in-group member, people become more honest themselves after observing an honest out-group member, revealing that out-groups can enhance morality. Depending on the severity of the moral action, the in-group licenses immoral behavior while the out-group buffers against it.
AbramsD.WetherellM.CochraneS.HoggM. A.TurnerJ. C. (1990). Knowing what to think by knowing who you are: Self-categorization and the nature of norm formation, conformity and group polarization. British Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1990.tb00892.x
2.
AndersonN. H. (1968). Likableness ratings of 555 personality-traits words. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025907
AquinoK.ReedA.ThauS.FreemanD. (2007). A grotesque and dark beauty: How moral identity and mechanisms of moral disengagement influence cognitive and emotional reactions to war. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.05.013
5.
BarghJ. A.ChartrandT. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54(7), 462–479.
6.
BarrD. J.LevyR.ScheepersC.TilyH. J. (2013). Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 68(3), 255–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2012.11.001
7.
BicchieriC. (2005). The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of social norms. In The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of social norms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511616037
8.
BowlesS.GintisH. (1998). The moral economy of communities: Structured populations and the evolution of pro-social norms. Evolution and Human Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(98)00015-4
9.
BrysbaertM.StevensM. (2018). Power analysis and effect size in mixed effects models: A tutorial. Journal of Cognition. https://doi.org/10.5334/joc.10
10.
CamererC. F. (2003). Behavioral game theory: Experiments in strategic interaction. Russell Sage Foundation.
DanaJ.WeberR. A.KuangJ. X. (2007). Exploiting moral wiggle room: Experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness. Economic Theory. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-006-0153-z
13.
De KwaadstenietE. W.Van DijkE.WitA.De CremerD.De RooijM. (2007). Justifying decisions in social dilemmas: Justification pressures and tacit coordination under environmental uncertainty. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167207307490
EverettJ. A. C.IngbretsenZ.CushmanF.CikaraM. (2017). Deliberation erodes cooperative behavior—Even towards competitive out-groups, even when using a control condition, and even when eliminating selection bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.06.014
16.
FeldmanHallO.OttoA. R.PhelpsE. A. (2018). Learning moral values: Another’s desire to punish enhances one’s own punitive behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000405
17.
FeldmanHallO.Sokol-HessnerP.Van BavelJ. J.PhelpsE. A. (2014). Fairness violations elicit greater punishment on behalf of another than for oneself. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6306
18.
FinkelE. J.BailC. A.CikaraM.DittoP. H.IyengarS.KlarS.MasonL.McGrathM. C.NyhanB.RandD. G. (2020). Political sectarianism in America. Science, 370(6516), 533–536.
19.
GinoF.AyalS.ArielyD. (2009). Contagion and differentiation in unethical behavior: The effect of one bad apple on the barrel. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02306.x
20.
GinoF.GalinskyA. D. (2012). Vicarious dishonesty: When psychological closeness creates distance from one’s moral compass. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.03.011
21.
GintisH.BowlesS.BoydR.FehrE. (2005). Moral sentiments and material interests: The foundations of cooperation in economic life. Economic Learning and Social Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2007.109.2.380
22.
GoldringM. R.HeiphetzL. (2020). Sensitivity to ingroup and outgroup norms in the association between commonality and morality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104025
23.
HeffnerJ.FeldmanHallO. (2019). Why we don’t always punish: Preferences for non-punitive responses to moral violations. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49680-2
24.
JordanJ. J.MullenEMurnighanJ. K. (2011). Striving for the moral self: The effects of recalling past moral actions on future moral behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211400208
25.
JordanJ. J.RandD. G.ArbesmanS.FowlerJ. H.ChristakisN. A. (2013). Contagion of cooperation in static and fluid social networks. PLoS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066199
26.
KahnemanD.KnetschJ. L.ThalerR. H. (1986). Fairness and the assumptions of economics. The Journal of Business, 59(S4), S285. https://doi.org/10.1086/296367
27.
KouchakiM. (2011). Vicarious moral licensing: The influence of others’ past moral actions on moral behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024552
28.
LakensD. (2014). Performing high-powered studies efficiently with sequential analyses. European Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2023
29.
MazarN.AmirO.ArielyD. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.45.6.633
30.
NookE. C.OngD. C.MorelliS. A.MitchellJ. P.ZakiJ. (2016). Prosocial conformity: Prosocial norms generalize across behavior and empathy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216649932
31.
ParkerM. T.Janoff-BulmanR. (2013). Lessons from morality-based social identity: The power of outgroup “hate,” not just ingroup “love.”Social Justice Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-012-0175-6
32.
RuggeriK.VećkalovB.BojanićL.AndersenT. L.Ashcroft-JonesS.AyacaxliN.ArroyoP. B.BergeM.BjørndalL.BursalıoğluA.BühlerV.ČadekM.ÇetinçelikM.ClayG.Cortijos-BernabeuA.DamnjanovićK.DugueT.EsbergM.SernaC. E.…FolkeT. (2020). The general fault in our fault lines. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/xvksa
33.
ShalviS.DanaJ.HandgraafM. J. J.De DreuC. K. W. (2011). Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2011.02.001
34.
ShalviS.HandgraafM. J. J.De DreuC. K. W. (2011). People avoid situations that enable them to deceive others. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.04.015
35.
SteinR. (2017). Trumping conformity: Urges towards conformity to ingroups and nonconformity to morally opposed outgroups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.12.007
36.
TurnerJ. C. (1975). Social comparison and social identity: Some prospects for intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420050102
37.
WeiselO.ShalviS. (2015). The collaborative roots of corruption. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1423035112
38.
ZhongC. B.PhillipsK. W.LeonardelliG. J.GalinskyA. D. (2008). Negational categorization and intergroup behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208315457
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
