Anti-social behavior in groups

0497248 - NHÚ 2019 RIV CZ eng V - Research Report
Bauer, Michal - Cahlíková, J. - Celik Katreniak, D. - Chytilová, Julie - Cingl, L. - Želinský, T.
Anti-social behavior in groups.
Prague: CERGE-EI, 2018. 51 s. CERGE-EI Working Paper Series, 632. ISSN 1211-3298
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GBP402/12/G130; GA ČR(CZ) GA17-13869S
Institutional support: RVO:67985998
Keywords : antisocial behavior * aggressive competitiveness * group membership
OECD category: Applied Economics, Econometrics
https://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp632.pdf

This paper provides strong evidence supporting the long-standing speculation that decisionmaking in groups has a dark side, by magnifying the prevalence of anti-social behavior towards outsiders. A large-scale experiment implemented in Slovakia and Uganda (N=2,309) reveals that deciding in a group with randomly assigned peers increases the prevalence of anti-social behavior that reduces everyone’s payoff but which improves the relative position of own group. The effects are driven by the influence of a group context on individual behavior, rather than by group deliberation. The observed patterns are strikingly similar on both continents.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0289816