Voting and (im)moral behavior

Abstract

Due to diffusion of responsibility, majority voting may induce immoral and selfish behavior because voters are rarely solely responsible for the outcome. Across three behavioral experiments (two preregistered; n = 1983), we test this hypothesis in situations where there is a conflict between morality and material self-interest. Participants were randomly assigned to make decisions about extracting money from a charity either in an experimental referendum or individually. We find no evidence that voting induces immoral behavior. Neither do we find that people self-servingly distort their beliefs about their responsibility for the outcome when they vote. If anything, the results suggest that voting makes people less immoral.

Figure 1

(A) Immoral behavior by condition in Study 2 (Majority voting), n = 704. (B) Immoral behavior by condition in Study 3 (Median voting), n = 704. Bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.

Figure 2

(A) Immoral behavior and beliefs of being pivotal in the majority voting condition (Study 2). (B) Immoral behavior and beliefs of being pivotal in the median voting condition (Study 3). Bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.