Changes of Causal Attribution by a Co-actor in Situations of Obvious Causality

Frontiers in Psychology

Yuki Nishi¹  Kazuki Hayashida²  Shu Morioka³  Yu Miyawaki⁴ 

[1] Department of Neurorehabilitation, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kio University, Koryo, Japan;Department of Neurorehabilitation, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kio University, Koryo, Japan;Department of Rehabilitation, Fujiikai Rehabilitation Hospital, Osaka, Japan;Department of Neurorehabilitation, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kio University, Koryo, Japan;Neurorehabilitation Research Center, Kio University, Koryo, Japan;Department of Neurorehabilitation, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kio University, Koryo, Japan;Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan;Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan;

关键词: causal attribution;    passing responsibility;    self-serving bias;    co-actor;    diffusion of responsibility;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.588089

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In social contexts, people are responsible for their actions and outcomes. Diffusion of responsibility is a well-known social phenomenon: people feel less responsible when performing an action with co-actors than when acting alone. In previous studies, co-actors reduced the participant’s responsibility attribution by making the cause of the outcomes ambiguous. Meanwhile, it is unclear whether the presence of co-actors creates diffusion of responsibility even in situations where it is “obvious” that both oneself and the co-actor are the causes of an outcome. To investigate this potential diffusion of responsibility, we used a temporal binding (TB) task as a measure of causal attribution. Low TB effects indicate the enhancement of external attribution (i.e., diffusion of responsibility) in perceptual processing for the action and outcomes. To investigate the influence of presence of a co-actor on causal attribution, participants were required to act under two experimental conditions: an ALONE condition (participant only) or a TOGETHER condition (with a co-actor). The only difference between the two conditions was whether the actions were shared. In addition, to make participants feel responsible, they were induced to feel guilt. In the High-harm condition, participants gave a financial reduction to a third party. When guilt was induced, participants showed lower TB effects in the TOGETHER condition compared to the ALONE condition. Our study suggests that actions with a co-actor change causal attributions even though the causes of the outcome are obvious. This may have implications for understanding diffusion of responsibility in inhumane situations.

【 授权许可】

CC BY