Collective decisions divert regret and responsibility away from the individual
It has recently been proposed that a key motivation for joining group decisions is to be protected from negative consequences of these decisions. To test this claim we investigated how experienced outcomes that trigger loss and regret impacted people’s tendency to make decisions alone or in a group, and how these decisions differed when voluntarily made alone vs in group. Replicated across two experiments, participants (N=125 and N=451) first selected whether to play alone or in a group with majority rule. Next, they chose between two lotteries with different probabilities and magnitudes of winning and losing. Experienced outcomes affected participants’ propensity to join a group: the higher the negative outcome, the more participants switched from deciding alone to with others. When choosing the lottery collectively (vs alone), choices were less driven by anticipation of loss and regret. Moreover, negative outcomes led to worse subsequent choices but only when outcome was experienced alone. Together, these results confirm the protective role of group decisions against blame and responsibility and reveal an alarming consequence of group decisions: when collective choice leads to unpalatable outcomes, the protective shield of the collective reduces the influence of negative emotions that could have helped individuals re-evaluate their past choice and possibly avoid repeating their mistakes.