Crowdsourcing punishment: Individuals reference group preferences to inform their own punitive decisions.

ABSTRACT: Justice systems delegate punishment decisions to groups in the belief that the aggregation of individuals' preferences facilitates judiciousness. However, group dynamics may also lead individuals to relinquish moral responsibility by conforming to the majority's preference for punishment. Across five experiments (N = 399), we find Victims and Jurors tasked with restoring justice become increasingly punitive (by as much as 40%) as groups express a desire to punish, with every additional punisher augmenting an individual's punishment rates. This influence is so potent that knowing about a past group's preference continues swaying decisions even when they cannot affect present outcomes. Using computational models of decision-making, we test long-standing theories of how groups influence choic

SUBMITTER: Son JY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6690944 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature