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

BibTeX: Download