Delegating decisions: An overlooked way of pursuing immoral goals

Modern societies are tormented by warfare, crime, corruption, and environmental exploitation.

If many people have prosocial goals and desire to see themselves and to be seen by others as moral, how do immoral acts like these continue to happen?

Economic research suggests a critical role of delegation: Decision-makers can delegate unethical, yet profitable decisions to delegates, which increases resource inequality, and at the same time averts punishment of delegators.

Yet, such indirect immorality, as an inherently elusive, inconspicuous phenomenon, is not only overlooked by observers, but also by psychological research. Who delegates immoral behaviors, when, and why? What determines observers reactions to delegators?

I propose the new 3R framework of delegation and test it in three empirical work packages spanning diverse methodology from social, moral and cognitive psychology and behavioral economics: People employ delegation strategically to reap the benefits of immoral acts while effectively avoiding responsibility and protecting their moral reputation in the eyes of others.

Basic social-cognitive mechanisms explain these intra- and interpersonal benefits of delegation.

Whereas previous work often focused on the few callous individuals who do not care about moral norms, the 3R framework assumes that precisely those who are morally motivated delegate immoral decisions to minimize their guilt and escape social blame.

Moreover, I predict and test an important asymmetry in how observers assign blame and praise for delegated immoral versus moral behaviors.

Given the fundamental psychological nature of immoral delegation, it should be frequent in peoples everyday lives and should already be observable in children. Taken together, the project aims to comprehensively study delegation under a unifying framework.

It will contribute a groundbreaking new perspective to the study of immoral behavior, and thereby illuminate the complex social nature of human morality.