A study by Kazuki Hayashida and Shu Morioka in the doctoral program at Kio University's graduate school revealed that even in situations where a causal relationship is clear, the transfer of responsibility occurs by acting together with others.
"Responsibility transfer" is known to occur when the cause of the result becomes ambiguous due to the existence of others, but it has not been clarified so far whether or not the cause of the result will be passed on even if the cause is obvious. rice field.Therefore, in this study, in order to investigate the effect of the existence of others on causal attribution, we examined perceptual causal attribution under various conditions using a method called temporal binding (TB).
In the experimental task, when the participants pressed the key, there was a time delay and then the sound was heard, and we asked them to estimate how much time the delay was.The smaller the estimated delay time, the higher the causal attribution (the sound was heard because I pressed a key).In addition, in order to evoke a sense of responsibility and guilt for the results of the participants' actions, "no financial loss (Baseline condition)", "1 yen loss (Low harm condition)", and "200 yen loss (High)" depending on the frequency of the sound. harm condition) ”was set.This was tried and compared under the ALONE condition for participants only and the TOGETHER condition for participants and others to carry out together.
As a result, under the condition that causes a large financial loss to others (High harm condition × TOGETHER condition), a significant extension of the estimated delay time was observed compared to the other conditions.In other words, it is clear that the cause of the result is the participant, and even though the damage is caused to others due to oneself, the responsibility shift that "the damage of others is not one's fault" occurs. I found out that there was.
This study suggests that even in situations where a causal relationship is clear, sharing actions with others may alter perceptual causal attribution and shift responsibility, especially in situations where loss is large. ..This result is expected to help clarify the mechanism of responsibility transfer, which still has many unclear points.
Paper information:[Frontiers in Psychology] Changes of Causal Attribution by a Co-Actor in Situations of Obvious Causality
