Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 441–445

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

j ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie r .com/ locate / jesp

FlashReport

Responsibility: The tie that binds

Cynthia E. Cryder a,⁎, George Loewenstein b,1

a Washington University in St. Louis, Olin Business School, 1 Brookings Dr. CB 1133, St. Louis, MO 63130, USAb Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +1 314 935 6359.E-mail addresses: cryder@wustl.edu (C.E. Cryder), gl

(G. Loewenstein).1 Fax: +1 412 268 6938.

0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. Alldoi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.09.009

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 26 June 2011Revised 6 September 2011Available online 24 September 2011

Keywords:AltruismGenerosityDecision makingEconomicsExternal validity

People share significantly more money with others in common lab paradigms like the dictator game thanthey do in real life. What accounts for this difference? Paradigms like the dictator game link each recipientto a single dictator with the implication that each recipient can receive funds from only one person. Weargue that this “burden” of responsibility to a single recipient helps to explain high levels of laboratory shar-ing. In two experiments—a modified dictator game experiment and a charitable giving experiment—participants donated significantly more to others when they were solely responsible for a recipient's outcomethan when the responsibility for a recipient was potentially shared. Taken together with past findings fromsocial psychology and experimental economics, the results show how unambiguous responsibility for a singlerecipient increases generosity.

20@andrew.cmu.edu

rights reserved.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Recent critiques of external validity in laboratory studies havepointed out that the magnitude of some common laboratory find-ings does not generalize to real world settings (Levitt & List,2007). For example, in the dictator game, a common experimentaleconomics paradigm, one participant (the dictator) receives an allo-cation such as $10 that can be shared with another participant (therecipient) who receives $0. Average giving for these games is about20% of the original allocation (Camerer & Fehr, 2003), a proportionsignificantly higher than the average percentage of individual sala-ries donated annually (around 2%; Giving USA, 2009). If peoplegive 20% of their allocation in the lab, why do they give so relativelylittle outside the lab?

One interpretation of this discrepancy is that there are standardfeatures of laboratory studies that do not generalize to real world giv-ing. Lab study features, including heightened scrutiny of behavior, canexaggerate the magnitude of prosocial behavior beyond what is real-istic (Levitt & List, 2007). Another interpretation of this discrepancy isthat the lab itself does not account for this discrepancy, but instead,that the dictator game includes a particular situational element thatencourages generosity, but that is not present for most real world giv-ing. Here, we argue for the latter.

Dictator games link each recipient to a single dictator with the im-plication that each recipient can receive funds from only one person.The dictator thus becomes completely responsible for the recipient's

outcome in the game. Research from both social psychology and ex-perimental economics suggests that this element of responsibility iskey.

In social psychology, a host of studies followed a 1960s murder inwhich a young woman, Kitty Genovese, was beaten and killed out-side her apartment in New York while several bystanders failed tointervene (Rosenthal, 1964). Subsequent experiments about the“bystander effect” found that the presence of other potential helpersdecreased the likelihood of helping (Darley & Latané, 1968; Latané &Darley, 1970). In one experiment, for example, participants sat in asolitary cubicle and talked via intercom with another participant.At one point, the other participant (a confederate), who was statedto have epilepsy, audibly feigned a seizure. When participants be-lieved they were the only person who could help the confederate,they helped 100% of the time. Helping rates fell, however, if otherpeople were available to help; if just one other participant was be-lieved to be available, 80% helped, and if four other participantswere believed to be available, only 62% helped (Darley & Latané,1968).

Experimental economics research on “moral wiggle room” pointsto the importance of clearly defined relationships between giver, re-cipient, and payouts (Dana, Weber, & Kuang, 2007). In the typicaldictator game, all information about players’ connection with eachother and about potential payouts is transparent; when dictatorsare selfish, both the dictators and the recipients know it and dicta-tors have no “wiggle room” to interpret selfish behavior favorably.When the transparency between players and outcomes is clouded,however, such as when recipients do not know the range of payoutpossibilities or dictators can choose to randomly determine selfishversus equitable payouts, generous behavior decreases (Dana et al.,2007).

442 C.E. Cryder, G. Loewenstein / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 441–445

The transparent one-to-one relationship between giver and re-cipient in dictator games removes the ability of dictators to inter-pret selfish choices in an ambiguous light, while also eliminatingthe hope that another bystander will intervene to help the recipi-ent. We hypothesize that this “burden” of responsibility betweengiver and recipient accounts, at least partially, for the high levelsof generosity observed in dictator games, and we test the idea intwo experiments.

Study 1

Experiment 1 tests whether people are more generous in stan-dard dictator games than in a modified version in which responsibil-ity for any one recipient is potentially shared among multipledictators.

Method

Participants

Two hundred and fifty-five adults recruited in a university libraryagreed to participate in a 3-minute decision making study in ex-change for a chance to receive an Amazon.com gift certificate. Ofthose assigned to be Decision Makers (i.e., dictators), eighty adults(40 female, 39 male, 1 unknown gender; MAge=24) ultimately com-pleted the decision task.

Procedure

After agreeing to participate, all participants learned that theywould flip a coin that would assign them to one of two roles,either Decision Maker or Decision Recipient. Participants flipped thecoin establishing their role, and received a participant number.Decision Makers learned that they would receive an e-mail within1 day asking them to make a decision and answer survey questions.Decision Recipients learned that they would receive an e-mail withinthe next 3 days that, depending on one or more Decision Makers'choices, might include an Amazon.com gift certificate.

All Decision Makers received an e-mail with a survey link within24 hours. The study reminded each Decision Maker of their partici-pant number and Decision Maker role. Then, Decision Makers readthat they would receive a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate for partici-pating. They also learned that they were entitled to keep the entire$10 gift certificate, but also had the opportunity to share half of thatgift certificate with a Decision Recipient who currently had $0 in giftcertificates. Decision Makers also learned that the number of peopleassigned to be Decision Makers or Decision Recipients in the studywas identical.

In addition to varying responsibility, we tested whether itmattered in this case if participants knew that their recipientwas already-determined versus to-be-determined (also termed“identifiable”2; Small & Loewenstein, 2003). The experiment there-fore included a 2 (Decision Recipient: Determined, Not Determined)X 2 (Decision Maker: Responsible, Not Responsible) between subjectsdesign. Decision Makers in the Determined condition learned theexact participant number of the Decision Recipient with whom theywere paired. DecisionMakers in the Not Determined condition learned

2 Previous literature has termed this manipulation “identifiable” (e.g., Small &Loewenstein, 2003; Kogut & Ritov, 2011). “Identifiable” also means other things,however, including describing victims in detail (e.g., Kogut & Ritov 2005a;2005b), and focusing on single victims (Small et al., 2007). Here, the recipient sim-ply was selected, so we use “determined” (also used in Small & Loewenstein,2003).

that the Decision Recipient who would receive their allocation wouldbe determined in the future. Decision Makers in the Responsible con-dition learned that they were the only Decision Maker who couldshare their gift certificate with the Decision Recipient with whomthey were (or would be) paired. Decision Makers in the Not Responsi-ble condition learned that if they did not share their gift certificatewith their Decision Recipient, the Recipient would be entered backinto the drawing pool and might or might not be matched with an-other Decision Maker.

All Decision Makers then decided whether or not they would givehalf ($5) of their $10 Amazon.com gift certificate to a DecisionRecipient.

Results

The main dependent measure was whether or not DecisionMakers shared their gift certificate. A logistic regression showed nosignificant interaction between responsibility and determinednessconditions, pN0.75. When looking at only a main effects model,there was no effect of determinedness, pN0.75, however, there wasa significant effect of responsibility; being entirely responsible forsomeone else's outcome increased the odds of sharing by a factor of3.03, χ2=(df=1, N=80)=5.58, pb0.02. Thirty-eight percent ofparticipants shared in the responsible condition whereas 65% sharedin the non-responsible condition.

Discussion

Study 1 systematically varied two factors: determinedness and re-sponsibility. Responsibility had a significant effect; when dictatorsknew that they were the only person who could give to a particularrecipient, their odds of giving increased by a factor of 3. Lower givingin the non-responsible condition occurred even though recruitmentprocedures made it clear that there were an equal number of DecisionMakers and Decision Recipients; when a Decision Maker in the non-responsible condition declined giving, a Recipient within the pool ul-timately went without funds.

In contrast to some prior work (Small & Loewenstein, 2003) we didnot observe a determinedness effect. Other prior work suggests thatdeterminedness effects are especially pronounced among in-groupmembers (Kogut & Ritov, 2011; see also Dickert, Sagara, & Slovic,2011; Kogut & Ritov, 2007), a condition that likely was not met in thisexperiment.

Study 2

Study 2 investigated the responsibility effect further, this time inthe context of donations to a charity. The study used a series of ma-nipulations that increasingly linked the decision maker more tightlyto the recipient.

Method

Participants

Two hundred and ninety-six adults (133 female; MAge=38) in anurban shopping area were recruited to participate in a 30-minute de-cision making study in exchange for $5.

Procedure

Participants learned that the researchers were interested in peo-ple's decisions about donating to charity, and that they would havethe opportunity to anonymously donate to a real charity in thestudy.

Table 1Donations by condition.

Condition Mean donation Percent donating

Undetermined—No Pictures $2.93 59%Undetermined—Pictures $2.70 56%Determined—Pictures $2.90 49%Responsibility-Determined—Pictures $4.53 72%

443C.E. Cryder, G. Loewenstein / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 441–445

Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimentalconditions, with each new condition linking the participant moretightly to the recipient. All participants first read brief background in-formation about the charity Children International. Participants in theUndetermined-No Pictures condition learned that through Children In-ternational they would have the opportunity to sponsor textbooks forneedy girls from Colombia and Chile. Then, they were asked howmuch they would donate. Participants in the Undetermined-Picturescondition saw pictures and names for 18 different girls who neededtextbooks (see Appendix A), and they were invited to click on anygirl's name to find out more about her (age, pastimes, income, etc.…)before they decided how much to give. Participants in the Determined-Pictures condition saw the picture screens with all 18 girls, and thensaw an additional screen with one girl who had already been selectedand learned that “Below is the girl whose books you can sponsor.” Onthe final donation screen, these Determined-pictures participants sawthat the child who had been selected to receive their contribution wasthe “next girl in line” for books, suggesting that if the participantdid not fully fund that girl's books, another participant in thefuture would have the opportunity to do so (see Appendix B).Finally, participants in the Determined-Pictures-Responsible conditionsaw the picture screens, saw the screen with one girl whose booksthey could sponsor, and additionally, they were informed that no onewould be asked to fund that child but themselves, making the partici-pant “responsible” for that girl's textbooks. On the final donation screen,theseDetermined-Pictures-Responsibleparticipants saw the girl whohadbeen selected to receive their contributionwas the “next girl in line” forbooks, and also saw that half of the girls previously had been fundedby their paired donors while the other half had not (see Appendix C).This final funded/not funded screenwas designed to ensure that partic-ipants understood that their choice, and their choice alone, woulddetermine whether the child they were paired with received any text-book funding.

Finally, all participants decided how much to give from $0–$25,with $25 marked as “a full set of books for one girl.” Any amountthat participants gave over $5 (their participation payment) camefrom cash that participants had with them when they arrivedat the experiment. Participants placed their donation in an enve-lope marked only with their anonymous participant number andplaced the envelope in a box with other participants' numberedenvelopes.

Results

Table 1 shows donation rates and mean donations for each condi-tion. There were no significant differences in the percent of peopledonating among three of the four conditions. However, participantsin the Determined-Pictures-Responsibility condition were more likelyto donate than were participants in all other groups (Table 1). TheDetermined-Pictures-Responsibility condition had a marginally greaterpercent of donations than the Undetermined-No Pictures conditionχ2(1, n=132)=3.67, p=0.06; a significantly greater percent ofdonations than the Undetermined-Pictures condition χ2(1, n=165)=5.23, pb0.05; and a significantly greater percent of donations thanthe Determined-Pictures condition χ2(1, n=135)=8.51, pb .01. Whenonly considering participants who donated, there were no significantdifferences between conditions as measured by the Kruskal–Wallisnon-parametric test χ2(3, N=179)=1.5, p=0.67,3 suggesting thatthe responsibility effect operated only on likelihood to donate and noton amount given.

3 The distribution of non-zero donations was non-normal.

Discussion

Similar to study 1, when participants were solely responsible foranother person's outcome, they were more generous. Other manipu-lations, including pictures and determinedness had no significant ef-fect in this study.

General discussion

Twoexperiments show thatwhenpeople are responsible for a partic-ular individual's outcome, they aremore generous to that individual thanwhen it is possible that another benefactor may provide aid. Althoughmultiple features of dictator games are likely to prompt increased giving(e.g., List and Cherry, 2008), unambiguous responsibility for an individu-al recipient is a standard feature of dictator games, and undoubtedly con-tributes to the high levels of giving in dictator game paradigms.

In our experiments, participants were either singularly responsiblefor another person's outcome or they shared responsibility among agroup. We suspect, based on previous research, that the responsibilityeffect is not simply a binary phenomenon, but is sensitive to groupsize. Although we would expect the strongest increase when only oneperson is responsible, we would also expect greater helping when twopeople are responsible instead of three, for example, or when threeare responsible instead of four (see Darley and Latané, 1968).

We do not yet know whether the responsibility effect encouragespeople to give while feeling moved by their own free will or whetherthey give because they feel pressured or coerced. Recent research sug-gests that this distinction has important implications for donor well-being (Weinstein & Ryan, 2010). While it is possible that the responsi-bility effect is a form of “reluctant altruism” (Dana, Cain, & Dawes,2006) leading people to feel compelled to give when they otherwisewould not, full responsibility also allows donors to receive benefitsfrom giving that they otherwise would not receive. With sole respon-sibility, donors can take full credit for any benefits received by the re-cipient (c.f., Gneezy, Gneezy, Nelson, & Brown, 2010), potentiallyenhancing the ‘warm glow’ of giving (Andreoni, 1990; Dunn, Aknin,& Norton, 2008; Harbaugh, Mayr, & Burghart, 2007). Furthermore,the mental representation of a single person—the donor—saving theday has potential to provide a highly vivid, and gratifying, self imageto the donor (Nordgren & Morris McDonnell, 2011).

Despite unusually high levels of giving in the lab, researchers oftenconclude, based on lab results about prosocial behavior, that peopleshowminimal compassion for their fellow human. The bystander effectis often viewed as a failure of human compassion, and “moral wiggleroom” findings suggest that people do not care about others' outcomes,but instead care only about not being selfish. We think the current re-sults present a brighter view. While participants do allow ambiguoussituations to let them off the hook from parting with their resources,they also do care about others' outcomes. When it is clear no one elsecan help, on average, participants step up to the plate and give.

Acknowledgments

A grant from the Hewlett Foundation supported this research.We thank Stephanie Becht, Andong Cheng, Leonel Merone, TerryStanley, Jacqueline Steiner, Chad Valasek, and Janice Weinberg forhelp conducting this research.

Appendix A

Appendix B

444 C.E. Cryder, G. Loewenstein / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 441–445

Appendix C

445C.E. Cryder, G. Loewenstein / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 441–445

References

Andreoni, J. (1990). Impure altruism and donations to public goods: a theory of warm-glow giving. Economic Journal, 100, 464–477.

Camerer, C. F., & Fehr, E. (2003). Measuring social norms and preferences usingexperimental games: A guide for social scientists. In J. Henrich, R. Boyd, S. Bowles,C. Camerer, E. Fehr, H. Gintis, & R. McElreath (Eds.), Foundations of Human Sociality(pp. 55–95). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dana, J., Cain, D. M., & Dawes, R. M. (2006). What you don't know won't hurt me:Costly (but quiet) exit in dictator games. Organizational Behavior and HumanDecision Processes, 100(2), 193–201.

Dana, J., Weber, R. A., & Kuang, J. X. (2007). Exploiting moral wiggle room: Experimentsdemonstrating an illusory preference for fairness. Economic Theory, 33, 67–80.

Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion ofresponsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377–383.

Dickert, S., Sagara, N., & Slovic, P. (2011). Affective motivations to help others. A two-statemodel of donation decisions. In D. M. Oppenheimer, & C. Y. Olivola (Eds.), The Scienceof Giving: Experimental Approaches to the Study of Charity (pp. 161–178). New York,NY: Taylor and 330 Francis.

Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promoteshappiness. Science, 319, 1687–1688.

Gneezy, A., Gneezy, U., Nelson, L. D., & Brown, A. (2010). Shared social responsibility: A fieldexperiment in pay-what-you-want pricing and charitable giving. Science, 329, 325–327.

Harbaugh, W., Mayr, U., & Burghart, D. (2007). Neural responses to taxation and volun-tary giving reveal motives for charitable donations. Science, 316, 1622–1625.

Kogut, T., & Ritov, I. (2005a). The “identified victim” effect: An individual group or justa single individual. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 18(3), 157–167.

Kogut, T., & Ritov, I. (2005b). The singularity effect of identified victims in separate andjoint evaluation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2),106–116.

Kogut, T., & Ritov, I. (2007). “One of us”: Outstanding willingness to help save a singleidentified compatriot. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 104,150–157.

Kogut, T., & Ritov, I. (2011). The identifiable victim effect: Causes and boundaryconditions. In D. M. Oppenheimer, & C. Y. Olivola (Eds.), The Science of Giving:Experimental Approaches to the Study of Charity (pp. 133–145). New York, NY:Taylor and Francis.

Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn't he help? NewYork: Appleton-Century Crofts.

Levitt, S. D., & List, J. A. (2007). What do laboratory experiments measuring socialpreferences reveal about the real world? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21,153–174.

List, J. A., & Cherry, T. L. (2008). Examining the role of fairness in high stakes allocationdecisions. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 65(1), 1–8.

Nordgren, L. F., & Morris McDonnell, M. H. (2011). The Scope-Severity Paradox: Whydoing more harm is judged to be less harmful. Social Psychological and PersonalityScience, 2(1), 97–102.

Rosenthal, A. M. (1964). Thirty-Eight Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Case. : University ofCalifornia Press.

Small, D. A., & Loewenstein, G. (2003). Helping “A” victim or helping “THE” victim:Altruism and identifiability. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 26(1), 5–16.

Weinstein, N., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). When helping helps: Autonomous motivation forprosocial behavior and its influence on well-being for the helper and recipient.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 222–224.