Isophoric News · Thursday, October 22, 2026
Online experiment finds flagrant rule-breaking by others increased participants' own rule-breaking
A study published Oct. 21 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B reports that people who saw others flagrantly break a rule in an online task increased their own rule-breaking, the Guardian and Science News reported. The researchers recruited 750 people in the United States, roughly half Republicans and half Democrats, for an online experiment in which choosing squares farther to the right on a screen earned more money than choosing the correct square. Without social information, about 23 percent of participants picked the farthest-right square, and that rose to almost 40 percent after they learned a participant of their own political party had done so, according to Science News; about a third of participants kept following the rules throughout, the Guardian reported. The task was abstract and carried no penalty, and Stephen Reicher of the University of St Andrews, who was not involved, told the Guardian the real-world relevance remains unproven; Eugen Dimant of the University of Pennsylvania told Science News that real-world penalties and norms keep behavior in check.