People are more likely to delegate decisions or 'pass the buck' when faced with choices that affect others, be it a business decision or just ordering dinner, a new study has found.
Researchers from Northeastern University in the US found that these findings were particularly true when the choices had potentially negative consequences.
In domains such as making a business decision, choosing a hotel, ordering meals, and even participating in experiments, people were two or three times as likely to delegate an unappealing choice on behalf of someone else than one on their own behalf.
Participants in one experiment imagined that they or their bosses needed a hotel reservation for an upcoming business trip.
They were more likely to delegate the choice to an office manager when the reservation was for a boss than for themselves, especially when the options were unappealing two-star hotels rather than luxurious five-star hotels.
"People care more about avoiding blame for bad outcomes than getting credit for good outcomes," said Mary Steffel from Northeastern University.
In another experiment, participants were again faced with the challenge of choosing a hotel from a list of unappealing options.
This time they were told that they were booking a hotel for themselves, booking it for a boss who would know they were in charge of that decision, or booking it for a boss who would not know they were making the decision.
Researchers found that participants were more likely to delegate when the reservation was for their bosses and their bosses would know they made the reservation than when they would not know, again showing that people care about avoiding blame.
People were more likely to delegate when the reservation was for their bosses than for themselves, regardless of whether their bosses would know they made the reservation, showing that avoiding blame is not the only reason people delegate choices for others, researchers said.
"Delegation is not just about avoiding blame. The mere prospect of feeling responsible for others' poor outcomes is enough to increase delegation," said Steffel.
Consequently, people only delegate to others with the authority to shoulder the responsibility for the decision, researchers said.
Participants avoided delegating if they themselves would still be held officially responsible for the choice outcomes.
They also avoided delegating to co-workers below them, regardless of who would be officially held responsible, because they believed that they would still maintain responsibility and blame if the choice were to turn out poorly, researchers said.
The findings were published in the journal Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes.
