Seeing someone else break a rule can make people more willing to violate it themselves, according to new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The study, led by Lucas Molleman and colleagues at the University of Amsterdam, found that people who witnessed serious rule violations became significantly more likely to break rules in a subsequent decision. Some participants even exceeded the level of misconduct they had observed.
The research involved 750 participants in the United States who completed an online experiment involving choices that affected their monetary rewards. The findings suggest that rule-breaking can spread through social influence, particularly when people see others behaving in ways that appear to offer an advantage. However, the researchers caution that the experiment used an abstract task, so its results cannot automatically be applied to every real-world situation involving misconduct.
Key Takeaways
- Rule-breaking can influence others: Participants were more likely to violate rules after seeing other people do so.
- Serious violations had a stronger effect: Witnessing blatant misconduct increased rule-breaking more than seeing minor violations.
- Some people escalated: A minority went beyond the level of rule-breaking they had observed.
- Political similarity mattered: Participants were more strongly influenced by people who shared their political affiliation.
- Good behavior did not have an equally strong effect: Seeing someone follow the rules did relatively little to encourage better behavior in this experiment.
- Not everyone followed the crowd: About one-third of participants consistently chose to follow the rules, even when doing so did not maximize their reward.
How Did Researchers Study Rule-Breaking?
The researchers recruited 750 US-based participants, approximately evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, for an online behavioral experiment.
Participants watched an animation showing a shooting star moving across a row of 100 squares. Their task was to select the square that lit up most intensely. Choosing the correct square followed the rules of the experiment.
However, the researchers introduced a financial incentive that created a temptation to cheat. Participants could earn greater rewards by selecting squares farther to the right, even when those squares were not correct.
After making an initial choice, participants saw how another person had behaved. They were shown whether that individual followed the rules, committed a minor violation or committed a more serious violation. The other participant’s political affiliation was also displayed.
Participants then had the opportunity to reconsider their own decisions. This process was repeated six times, allowing researchers to examine how exposure to other people’s behavior influenced subsequent choices.
The design helped researchers distinguish between simply copying another person’s actions and responding to the severity of the violation.
What Did the Study Discover?
Major rule violations had a stronger influence
The researchers found that approximately 23% of participants’ initial choices involved selecting the option associated with the highest reward, despite violating the task’s rules.
Observing another person follow the rules tended to reduce rule-breaking, but the effect was relatively small. Witnessing minor violations also had an influence, with some participants becoming more willing to bend the rules themselves.
The strongest effect appeared when participants observed blatant violations. They became substantially more likely to break the rules, and some went further than the person they had observed.
This suggests that people do not always imitate misconduct at the same level. In some situations, they may treat another person’s behavior as a signal that more aggressive rule-breaking is possible or acceptable.
Some participants escalated beyond what they observed
One particularly important finding was that a minority of participants escalated their behavior instead of merely copying others.
When participants witnessed minor violations, approximately 4% went further than the violation they had observed, according to the study’s reported results.
The researchers then used computer simulations to examine how this tendency could affect a larger group. Their simulations suggested that even occasional escalation could turn limited rule-breaking into widespread noncompliance under certain conditions.
These simulations do not demonstrate that every group will follow this pattern. Instead, they show how a relatively small number of people who repeatedly push boundaries could have an outsized influence on group behavior.
Why Political Similarity Influenced Behavior
The experiment also examined whether people were more influenced by individuals with similar political views.
The researchers found stronger effects when participants observed rule-breaking by someone from their own political side. This suggests that social influence may depend partly on who commits the violation, rather than simply on the violation itself.
People may pay greater attention to the behavior of individuals they identify with, trust or perceive as members of their group. When such individuals disregard a rule, observers may become more willing to reconsider their own behavior.
However, the study does not establish that political identity always causes people to break rules. Its findings concern a particular experiment involving US participants and should not be generalized to every political group or society.
The result highlights the importance of social relationships and group identity when studying how people respond to misconduct.
Can One Person’s Behavior Affect an Entire Group?
The researchers’ computer simulations suggest that rule-breaking could spread and escalate if certain conditions are present.
| Observed behavior | Response in the experiment | Possible group-level implication |
|---|---|---|
| Following the rules | Slightly reduced rule-breaking | Positive behavior may have a limited influence in some settings |
| Minor violations | Slightly increased rule-breaking | Small violations may encourage imitation |
| Major violations | Substantially increased rule-breaking | Serious misconduct may weaken compliance |
| Violations by politically similar individuals | Stronger influence in the experiment | Group identity may amplify social influence |
| Escalation beyond observed behavior | Occurred among a minority | A small number of escalators may accelerate broader noncompliance |
The findings help explain why organizations and communities may struggle when misconduct appears to go unchallenged. If people repeatedly observe others gaining advantages by breaking rules, they may begin to question whether following those rules is worthwhile.
This could be relevant to workplaces, schools, online communities and other environments where people observe one another’s choices. Nevertheless, the experiment did not directly test these settings, and its findings should be treated as a potential explanation rather than proof of how misconduct spreads in every environment.
What Are the Limitations of the Research?
The study provides experimental evidence that other people’s behavior can influence rule-breaking, but it has important limitations.
First, the task involved selecting squares on a computer screen to earn a monetary reward. Real-world misconduct can involve very different motivations, including fear, peer pressure, personal gain, loyalty or disagreement with a rule.
Second, the experiment did not impose a real penalty for breaking the task’s rules. The decision to violate a rule when there is no meaningful punishment may differ from decisions involving legal consequences, employment risks or harm to other people.
Third, the participants were recruited in the United States, and the experiment explicitly included political affiliation. Further research would be needed to determine how the results apply across cultures, age groups and social environments.
The findings also do not mean that everyone who witnesses misconduct will copy it. A substantial proportion of participants continued to follow the rules despite the financial incentive to do otherwise.
The Bigger Picture
The study challenges the assumption that people make decisions about rules entirely independently. In many situations, people observe how others behave and use that information when deciding what is acceptable, worthwhile or socially expected. When serious violations appear to go unpunished, the perceived cost of breaking a rule may fall, potentially encouraging others to follow suit.
The research also suggests that preventing misconduct may require more than telling people to follow the rules. Consistent enforcement, clear expectations and visible accountability may help prevent violations from becoming normalized. At the same time, researchers caution against treating every departure from a convention as harmful: some forms of rule-breaking can support creativity, learning or positive change. The consequences depend on the rule, the context and the behavior involved.
FAQs
1. What did the new study find?
The study found that witnessing other people break rules can increase an individual’s willingness to break rules, particularly when the observed violation is serious.
2. How many people participated in the experiment?
The researchers recruited 750 participants in the United States, approximately evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.
3. Why did researchers include political affiliation?
They wanted to test whether people were influenced differently by someone who shared their political views. The effect of observed rule-breaking was stronger when participants shared the other person’s political affiliation.
4. Can small violations lead to bigger misconduct?
The experiment found that a minority of participants escalated beyond the violations they observed. Computer simulations suggested that such escalation could contribute to widespread rule-breaking under certain conditions.
5. Does the study prove that bad behavior always spreads?
No. The experiment used an abstract task with monetary incentives and no real penalty for violating its rules. The findings demonstrate a potential social influence mechanism, not a universal law of human behavior.
Looking Ahead
Future research will need to test whether the same patterns emerge in more realistic environments, including workplaces, online communities and public settings. Researchers could also examine how accountability, punishment, leadership behavior and group identity affect the likelihood that people imitate or escalate misconduct. Such evidence could help organizations design more effective ways to encourage compliance without treating all deviations from established practices as harmful.
For now, the study provides evidence that the behavior people observe around them can influence their own decisions. When serious violations appear common or acceptable, some individuals may become more willing to cross the same boundaries—and occasionally push them further. Understanding when that influence occurs, and how it can be limited, remains an important question for behavioral science.
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