Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs

Huber C, Dreber A, Huber J, Johannesson M, Kirchler M, Weitzel U, Abellán M, Adayeva X, Ay FC, Barron K, Berry Z, Bönte W, Brütt K, Bulutay M, Campos-Mercade P, Cardella E, Claassen MA, Cornelissen G, Dawson IG, Delnoij J, Demiral EE, Dimant E, Doerflinger JT, Dold M, Emery C, Fiala L, Fiedler S, Freddi E, Fries T, Gasiorowska A, Glogowsky U, M Gorny P, Gretton JD, Grohmann A, Hafenbrädl S, Handgraaf M, Hanoch Y, Hart E, Hennig M, Hudja S, Hütter M, Hyndman K, Ioannidis K, Isler O, Jeworrek S, Jolles D, Juanchich M, Kc RP, Khadjavi M, Kugler T, Li S, Lucas B, Mak V, Mechtel M, Merkle C, Meyers EA, Mollerstrom J, Nesterov A, Neyse L, Nieken P, Nussberger AM, Palumbo H, Peters K, Pirrone A, Qin X, Rahal RM, Rau HA, Rincke J, Ronzani P, Roth Y, Saral AS, Schmitz J, Schneider F, Schram A, Schudy S, Schweitzer ME, Schwieren C, Scopelliti I, Sirota M, Sonnemans J, Soraperra I, Spantig L, Steimanis I, Steinmetz J, Suetens S, Theodoropoulou A, Urbig D, Vorlaufer T, Waibel J, Woods D, Yakobi O, Yilmaz O, Zaleskiewicz T, Zeisberger S, Holzmeister F (2023)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2023

Journal

Book Volume: 120

Pages Range: e2215572120

Issue: 23

Journal Issue: 23

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2215572120

Abstract

Does competition affect moral behavior? This fundamental question has been debated among leading scholars for centuries, and more recently, it has been tested in experimental studies yielding a body of rather inconclusive empirical evidence. A potential source of ambivalent empirical results on the same hypothesis is design heterogeneity—variation in true effect sizes across various reasonable experimental research protocols. To provide further evidence on whether competition affects moral behavior and to examine whether the generalizability of a single experimental study is jeopardized by design heterogeneity, we invited independent research teams to contribute experimental designs to a crowd-sourced project. In a large-scale online data collection, 18,123 experimental participants were randomly allocated to 45 randomly selected experimental designs out of 95 submitted designs. We find a small adverse effect of competition on moral behavior in a meta-analysis of the pooled data. The crowd-sourced design of our study allows for a clean identification and estimation of the variation in effect sizes above and beyond what could be expected due to sampling variance. We find substantial design heterogeneity—estimated to be about 1.6 times as large as the average standard error of effect size estimates of the 45 research designs—indicating that the informativeness and generalizability of results based on a single experimental design are limited. Drawing strong conclusions about the underlying hypotheses in the presence of substantive design heterogeneity requires moving toward much larger data collections on various experimental designs testing the same hypothesis.

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

University of Zurich / Universität Zürich (UZH) Switzerland (CH) Universität Osnabrück Germany (DE) Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen Germany (DE) University of Essex United Kingdom (GB) Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck / University of Innsbruck Austria (AT) University of Amsterdam Netherlands (NL) City, University of London United Kingdom (GB) Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU) Austria (AT) Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) / Handelshögskolan i Stockholm (HHS) Sweden (SE) Baylor University (BU) United States (USA) (US) Leuphana Universität Lüneburg Germany (DE) Pomona College United States (USA) (US) Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Gemeinschaftsgütern (MPI-EG) / Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods Germany (DE) University of Exeter United Kingdom (GB) Wageningen University & Research Netherlands (NL) Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) Spain (ES) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) / University Amsterdam Netherlands (NL) International Security and Development Center (ISDC) Germany (DE) Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Germany (DE) University of Haifa / אוניברסיטת חיפה Israel (IL) Telenor Norway (NO) University of Waterloo (UW) Canada (CA) Philipps-Universität Marburg Germany (DE) George Mason University United States (USA) (US) Bergische Universität Wuppertal Germany (DE) IESE Business School Spain (ES) Indiana University United States (USA) (US) Shanghai Jiao Tong University / 上海交通大学 China (CN) Universität Konstanz Germany (DE) National Research University - Higher School of Economics (HSE) / Высшая школа экономики Russian Federation (RU) Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) Germany (DE) Münchener Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wirtschaftswissenschaft - CESifo GmbH Germany (DE) Radboud University Nijmegen Netherlands (NL) Texas Tech University (TTU) United States (USA) (US) University of Copenhagen Denmark (DK) University of Southampton United Kingdom (GB) Cornell University United States (USA) (US) Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Germany (DE) Tilburg University Netherlands (NL) University of Texas at Dallas (UTD / UT Dallas) United States (USA) (US) Austin Peay State University (APSU) / Universidad Estatal Austin Peay United States (USA) (US) University of Bergen / Universitetet i Bergen Norway (NO) University of Pennsylvania United States (USA) (US) The London School of Economics and Political Science United Kingdom (GB) Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Germany (DE) University of Cambridge United Kingdom (GB) Aarhus University Denmark (DK) University of Queensland Australia (AU) University of Glasgow United Kingdom (GB) Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST) France (FR) Kadir Has University / Kadir Has Üniversitesi Turkey (TR) University of Arizona United States (USA) (US) Technische Universität Berlin Germany (DE) Johannes Kepler Universität (JKU) Linz Austria (AT) Rollins College United States (USA) (US) SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities / Uniwersytet Humanistycznospołeczny Poland (PL) Tinbergen Institute (TI) Netherlands (NL) Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung (MPIB) / Max Planck Institute for Human Development Germany (DE) Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg Germany (DE) Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Huber, C., Dreber, A., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Weitzel, U.,... Holzmeister, F. (2023). Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120(23), e2215572120. https://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215572120

MLA:

Huber, Christoph, et al. "Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120.23 (2023): e2215572120.

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