Beyond self-serving bias: diffusion of responsibility reduces sense of agency and outcome monitoring.
Diffusion of responsibility across agents has been proposed to underlie decreased helping and increased aggression in group behaviour. However, few studies have directly investigated effects of the presence of other people on how we experience the consequences of our actions. This EEG study investigated whether diffusion of responsibility simply reflects a post-hoc self-serving bias, or rather has direct effects on how we process the outcomes of our actions, and our experience of agency over them. Participants made voluntary actions whose outcomes were more or less negative. Presence of another potential agent reduced participants' sense of agency over those outcomes, even though it was always obvious who caused each outcome. Further, presence of another agent reduced the amplitude of feedback-related negativity evoked by outcome stimuli, suggesting reduced outcome monitoring. The presence of other agents may lead to diffusion of responsibility by weakening the neural linkage between one's actions and their outcomes.
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
Frederike
F
Beyer
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.|Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France.
Nura
N
Sidarus
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.|School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK.
Sofia
S
Bonicalzi
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.|School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK.
Patrick
P
Haggard
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D012941:Social Responsibility; D055815:Young Adult
FRN; diffusion of responsibility; outcome monitoring; sense of agency; social interaction