Heiko Rauhut
Biographic Data
| ID | 198828 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heiko Rauhut |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heiko |
| FAMILY NAME | Rauhut |
| SIGNATURE | RAUHUT H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Zurich |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1181-5534 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Why social norms matter in science: Determinants of misconduct in German-speaking Europe
Science studies have often emphasized the “what” of misconduct while neglecting the equally important “why”. Using a sociological lens, we shed light on the mechanisms underlying scientific misconduct and contribute to theoretical debates on its causes. We propose several potential individual and structural drivers of scientific misconduct, including alienation, rational considerations, and social norms and test these hypotheses using survey data…
Are questionable research practices considered a successful career strategy? A novel implementation of the implicit association test
Scientific misconduct and questionable research practices (QRPs) pose significant challenges to the integrity of academic research. This study therefore investigates scientists’ implicit associations regarding misconduct and its relationship with perceived academic success. Employing the Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT), the attitudes of 11,747 scientists across Austria, Germany, and Switzerland were examined. Results suggest th…
Prosocial environments promote individual success: Evidence from a school network panel study
Why do we care for others? Several studies have shown that people holding altruistic dispositions tend to be more successful than others. Since caring for others is often costly, theoretical arguments propose that the social context plays a crucial role in determining whether altruism is advantageous and, thus, can be sustained over time. Our study empirically investigates the underlying social context and mechanisms by which altruism can be bene…
Rebel without a Cause: The Effects of Social Origins and Disposable Income on Rule Violations
Are upper-class individuals more inclined to violate rules? Using behavioural data, recent studies have challenged the traditional assumption of upper social class members being less rule violating, while other studies find no or opposite effects. We bring together behavioural decision-making games with traditional survey measures in a unique setup to re-evaluate the proposed relation between social class and rule violations, distinguishing betwe…
Mapping mental models of science communication: How academics in Germany, Austria and Switzerland understand and practice science communication
The mental models that individual scholars have of science communication – how it works, what it is supposed to achieve and so on – shape the way these academics actually communicate to the public. But these mental models, and their prevalence among scholars, have rarely been analysed. Drawing on a large-scale, representative web survey of academics at universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland ( n = 15,778) from 2020, we identify three men…
Handle with Care: Implementation of the List Experiment and Crosswise Model in a Large-scale Survey on Academic Misconduct
This research analyzes the effectiveness of the list experiment and crosswise model in measuring self-plagiarism and data manipulation. Both methods were implemented in a large-scale survey of academics on social norms and academic misconduct. As the results lend little confidence about the effectiveness of the methods, researchers are best advised to avoid them or, at best, to handle them with care
Satisfaction of scientists during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown
The discussion of the social, political and economic consequences of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic mainly revolves around negative effects. This study exploits a unique opportunity and analyses data from a survey ( N = 13,316) that happened to be in the field in the months of the development and eventual manifestation of the COVID-19 pandemic. It documents slightly higher levels of average general life satisfaction as well as of satis…
Values in adolescent friendship networks
Values—the motivational goals that define what is important to us—guide our decisions and actions every day. Their importance is established in a long line of research investigating their universality across countries and their evolution from childhood to adulthood. In adolescence, value structures are subject to substantial change, as life becomes increasingly social. Value change has thus far been understood to operate independently within each…
Prosocial Behaviour in Interethnic Encounters: Evidence from a Field Experiment with High- and Low-Status Immigrants
Recent waves of immigration have changed the demographic face of European societies and fueled considerable debate over the consequences of ethnic diversity for social cohesion. One prominent argument in this debate holds that individuals are less willing to extend trust and solidarity across ethnic lines, leading to lower social capital in multiethnic communities. We present a direct test of this proposition in a field experiment involving nativ…
Does the Winner Take it All? Increasing Inequality in Scientific Authorship
Scientific authorship has become a hot topic in the social sciences. We present three avenues addressing this topic from different perspectives to illustrate in which direction research on inequalities in the context of scientific authorship and academic publications may move. We draw on data from the Web of Science focusing on the field of sociology. We demonstrate that (i) the alphabetical order of co‐authors' names sends out an ambiguous signa…
Game Theory
Game theory analyzes strategic decision making of multiple interdependent actors and has become influential in economics, political science, and sociology. It provides novel insights in criminology because it is a universal language for the unification of the social and behavioral sciences and allows deriving new hypotheses from fundamental assumptions about decision making. This chapter first reviews foundations and assumptions of game theory, b…
Vernetzung und Positionierung der Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (KZfSS) in der länder-, disziplinen- und sprachübergreifenden Diskussion
Majoritarian democracy undermines truth-finding in deliberative committees
The aggregated judgments of many usually outperform individual estimates of vaguely known facts. Communication among individuals may, however, undermine this wisdom-of-crowd effect because it makes judgments mutually dependent. Deliberative democratic theory, on the other hand, suggests that communication promotes correct decisions. We investigate this puzzle about the positive and negative consequences of consensus formation on the wisdom of cro…
Stronger inspection incentives, less crime? Further experimental evidence on inspection games
When do more severe punishments not deter crimes and when are stronger incentives for control personnel ineffective to motive control? This contribution shows when incentives for crime control have paradoxical effects. It follows from game theoretical reasoning that the opposed interests between criminals and inspectors lead to strategies where both seek to outsmart each other. If both do so, ego's incentives only affect alter's behavior. This "s…
Lifting the veil of ignorance: An experiment on the contagiousness of norm violations
Norm violations can be contagious. Previous research analyzed two mechanisms of why knowledge about others' norm violations triggers its spread: (1) actors lower their subjective beliefs about the probability or severity of punishment or (2) they condition their compliance on others' compliance. While earlier field studies could hardly disentangle both effects, we use a laboratory experiment which eliminates any punishment threat. Subjects (n = 4…
Avoiding Detection or Reciprocating Norm Violations
There is a growing body of research showing that people altruistically enforce cooperation norms in social dilemmas. Most of this research analyzes situations where norm violators are known and group members enforce cooperation among each other. However, in many situations norm violators are unknown and detection and punishment is enforced by third parties, such as in plagiarism, tax evasion, doping or even two-timing. Our contribution is threefo…
Bargaining over waiting time in ultimatum game experiments
How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect
Social groups can be remarkably smart and knowledgeable when their averaged judgements are compared with the judgements of individuals. Already Galton [Galton F (1907) Nature 75:7] found evidence that the median estimate of a group can be more accurate than estimates of experts. This wisdom of crowd effect was recently supported by examples from stock markets, political elections, and quiz shows [Surowiecki J (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds ]. In con…
Die Präventivwirkung des Nichtwissens im Experiment / Experimental Evidence for the Preventive Effect of Ignorance
„Die Präventivwirkung des Nichtwissens“ ist eine Hypothese über die Stabilität des Normensystems, die von Heinrich Popitz (1968) aufgestellt wurde. Die Hypothese schreibt der Dunkelziffer eine normstabilisierende Kraft zu. Würde demnach das tatsächliche Ausmaß von Normabweichungen bekannt, müsste dies das Normensystem schwächen. Bei Ahndung aller Normenbrüche würde das Normensystem kollabieren. Wir untersuchen mit einem einfachen Experiment, inwi…
European Sociological Review
Journal Article European Sociological Review Get access European Sociological Review, Volume 27, Issue 4, August 2011, Page i2, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcr061 Published: 30 July 2011
Self-Organization and Emergence in Social Systems: Modeling the Coevolution of Social Environments and Cooperative Behavior
We demonstrate with computational simulation scenarios how social environments and individual behavior coevolve and how fundamentally different macro-effects emerge, when separate micromechanisms are combined. Our framework considers social interactions among agents on a spatial grid or in networks. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, neither imitation of more successful strategies nor the migration to more favorable locations can promote cooperation. How…
A sociological perspective on measuring social norms by means of strategy method experiments
Higher Punishment, Less Control: Experimental Evidence On the Inspection Game
Rational choice theory predicts for higher punishment less crime. However, many field studies could not support this conclusion. A game theoretic approach can explain these puzzling findings because it takes not only criminals' but also control agents' rationality into account. Mixed Nash equilibria predict for higher punishment less control and no effect on crime rates. A new experimental design is introduced to test game theoretic hypotheses. 1…
Die Durchsetzung sozialer Normen in Low-Cost und High-Cost Situationen / Enforcement of Social Norms in Low-Cost and High-Cost Situations
In Feldstudien konnte häufig mittels der Low-Cost Hypothese gezeigt werden, dass normkonformes Verhalten von den dafür aufzuwendenden Kosten abhängt. Doch die Gültigkeit der Low-Cost Hypothese ist bei der Durchsetzung sozialer Normen bislang wenig erforscht. In unserer Studie werden diese kollektiven Güter zweiter Ordnung anhand nachbarschaftlicher Kontrollen analysiert. Es werden Daten einer postalischen Befragung von 631 Personen in Leipzig aus…
European Sociological Review
Journal Article European Sociological Review Get access European Sociological Review, Volume 27, Issue 4, August 2011, Page i2, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcr061 Published: 30 July 2011
A sociological perspective on measuring social norms by means of strategy method experiments
Lifting the veil of ignorance: An experiment on the contagiousness of norm violations
Norm violations can be contagious. Previous research analyzed two mechanisms of why knowledge about others' norm violations triggers its spread: (1) actors lower their subjective beliefs about the probability or severity of punishment or (2) they condition their compliance on others' compliance. While earlier field studies could hardly disentangle both effects, we use a laboratory experiment which eliminates any punishment threat. Subjects (n = 4…
Prosocial Behaviour in Interethnic Encounters: Evidence from a Field Experiment with High- and Low-Status Immigrants
Recent waves of immigration have changed the demographic face of European societies and fueled considerable debate over the consequences of ethnic diversity for social cohesion. One prominent argument in this debate holds that individuals are less willing to extend trust and solidarity across ethnic lines, leading to lower social capital in multiethnic communities. We present a direct test of this proposition in a field experiment involving nativ…
Die Durchsetzung sozialer Normen in Low-Cost und High-Cost Situationen / Enforcement of Social Norms in Low-Cost and High-Cost Situations
In Feldstudien konnte häufig mittels der Low-Cost Hypothese gezeigt werden, dass normkonformes Verhalten von den dafür aufzuwendenden Kosten abhängt. Doch die Gültigkeit der Low-Cost Hypothese ist bei der Durchsetzung sozialer Normen bislang wenig erforscht. In unserer Studie werden diese kollektiven Güter zweiter Ordnung anhand nachbarschaftlicher Kontrollen analysiert. Es werden Daten einer postalischen Befragung von 631 Personen in Leipzig aus…
Higher Punishment, Less Control: Experimental Evidence On the Inspection Game
Rational choice theory predicts for higher punishment less crime. However, many field studies could not support this conclusion. A game theoretic approach can explain these puzzling findings because it takes not only criminals' but also control agents' rationality into account. Mixed Nash equilibria predict for higher punishment less control and no effect on crime rates. A new experimental design is introduced to test game theoretic hypotheses. 1…
Bargaining over waiting time in ultimatum game experiments
Self-Organization and Emergence in Social Systems: Modeling the Coevolution of Social Environments and Cooperative Behavior
We demonstrate with computational simulation scenarios how social environments and individual behavior coevolve and how fundamentally different macro-effects emerge, when separate micromechanisms are combined. Our framework considers social interactions among agents on a spatial grid or in networks. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, neither imitation of more successful strategies nor the migration to more favorable locations can promote cooperation. How…
Handle with Care: Implementation of the List Experiment and Crosswise Model in a Large-scale Survey on Academic Misconduct
This research analyzes the effectiveness of the list experiment and crosswise model in measuring self-plagiarism and data manipulation. Both methods were implemented in a large-scale survey of academics on social norms and academic misconduct. As the results lend little confidence about the effectiveness of the methods, researchers are best advised to avoid them or, at best, to handle them with care
Values in adolescent friendship networks
Values—the motivational goals that define what is important to us—guide our decisions and actions every day. Their importance is established in a long line of research investigating their universality across countries and their evolution from childhood to adulthood. In adolescence, value structures are subject to substantial change, as life becomes increasingly social. Value change has thus far been understood to operate independently within each…
Die Präventivwirkung des Nichtwissens im Experiment / Experimental Evidence for the Preventive Effect of Ignorance
„Die Präventivwirkung des Nichtwissens“ ist eine Hypothese über die Stabilität des Normensystems, die von Heinrich Popitz (1968) aufgestellt wurde. Die Hypothese schreibt der Dunkelziffer eine normstabilisierende Kraft zu. Würde demnach das tatsächliche Ausmaß von Normabweichungen bekannt, müsste dies das Normensystem schwächen. Bei Ahndung aller Normenbrüche würde das Normensystem kollabieren. Wir untersuchen mit einem einfachen Experiment, inwi…
Majoritarian democracy undermines truth-finding in deliberative committees
The aggregated judgments of many usually outperform individual estimates of vaguely known facts. Communication among individuals may, however, undermine this wisdom-of-crowd effect because it makes judgments mutually dependent. Deliberative democratic theory, on the other hand, suggests that communication promotes correct decisions. We investigate this puzzle about the positive and negative consequences of consensus formation on the wisdom of cro…
Stronger inspection incentives, less crime? Further experimental evidence on inspection games
When do more severe punishments not deter crimes and when are stronger incentives for control personnel ineffective to motive control? This contribution shows when incentives for crime control have paradoxical effects. It follows from game theoretical reasoning that the opposed interests between criminals and inspectors lead to strategies where both seek to outsmart each other. If both do so, ego's incentives only affect alter's behavior. This "s…
Avoiding Detection or Reciprocating Norm Violations
There is a growing body of research showing that people altruistically enforce cooperation norms in social dilemmas. Most of this research analyzes situations where norm violators are known and group members enforce cooperation among each other. However, in many situations norm violators are unknown and detection and punishment is enforced by third parties, such as in plagiarism, tax evasion, doping or even two-timing. Our contribution is threefo…
Die Durchsetzung sozialer Normen in Low-Cost und High-Cost Situationen / Enforcement of Social Norms in Low-Cost and High-Cost Situations
In Feldstudien konnte häufig mittels der Low-Cost Hypothese gezeigt werden, dass normkonformes Verhalten von den dafür aufzuwendenden Kosten abhängt. Doch die Gültigkeit der Low-Cost Hypothese ist bei der Durchsetzung sozialer Normen bislang wenig erforscht. In unserer Studie werden diese kollektiven Güter zweiter Ordnung anhand nachbarschaftlicher Kontrollen analysiert. Es werden Daten einer postalischen Befragung von 631 Personen in Leipzig aus…
Higher Punishment, Less Control: Experimental Evidence On the Inspection Game
Rational choice theory predicts for higher punishment less crime. However, many field studies could not support this conclusion. A game theoretic approach can explain these puzzling findings because it takes not only criminals' but also control agents' rationality into account. Mixed Nash equilibria predict for higher punishment less control and no effect on crime rates. A new experimental design is introduced to test game theoretic hypotheses. 1…
A sociological perspective on measuring social norms by means of strategy method experiments
How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect
Social groups can be remarkably smart and knowledgeable when their averaged judgements are compared with the judgements of individuals. Already Galton [Galton F (1907) Nature 75:7] found evidence that the median estimate of a group can be more accurate than estimates of experts. This wisdom of crowd effect was recently supported by examples from stock markets, political elections, and quiz shows [Surowiecki J (2004) The Wisdom of Crowds ]. In con…
Die Präventivwirkung des Nichtwissens im Experiment / Experimental Evidence for the Preventive Effect of Ignorance
„Die Präventivwirkung des Nichtwissens“ ist eine Hypothese über die Stabilität des Normensystems, die von Heinrich Popitz (1968) aufgestellt wurde. Die Hypothese schreibt der Dunkelziffer eine normstabilisierende Kraft zu. Würde demnach das tatsächliche Ausmaß von Normabweichungen bekannt, müsste dies das Normensystem schwächen. Bei Ahndung aller Normenbrüche würde das Normensystem kollabieren. Wir untersuchen mit einem einfachen Experiment, inwi…
European Sociological Review
Journal Article European Sociological Review Get access European Sociological Review, Volume 27, Issue 4, August 2011, Page i2, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcr061 Published: 30 July 2011
Self-Organization and Emergence in Social Systems: Modeling the Coevolution of Social Environments and Cooperative Behavior
We demonstrate with computational simulation scenarios how social environments and individual behavior coevolve and how fundamentally different macro-effects emerge, when separate micromechanisms are combined. Our framework considers social interactions among agents on a spatial grid or in networks. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, neither imitation of more successful strategies nor the migration to more favorable locations can promote cooperation. How…
Bargaining over waiting time in ultimatum game experiments
Avoiding Detection or Reciprocating Norm Violations
There is a growing body of research showing that people altruistically enforce cooperation norms in social dilemmas. Most of this research analyzes situations where norm violators are known and group members enforce cooperation among each other. However, in many situations norm violators are unknown and detection and punishment is enforced by third parties, such as in plagiarism, tax evasion, doping or even two-timing. Our contribution is threefo…
Majoritarian democracy undermines truth-finding in deliberative committees
The aggregated judgments of many usually outperform individual estimates of vaguely known facts. Communication among individuals may, however, undermine this wisdom-of-crowd effect because it makes judgments mutually dependent. Deliberative democratic theory, on the other hand, suggests that communication promotes correct decisions. We investigate this puzzle about the positive and negative consequences of consensus formation on the wisdom of cro…
Stronger inspection incentives, less crime? Further experimental evidence on inspection games
When do more severe punishments not deter crimes and when are stronger incentives for control personnel ineffective to motive control? This contribution shows when incentives for crime control have paradoxical effects. It follows from game theoretical reasoning that the opposed interests between criminals and inspectors lead to strategies where both seek to outsmart each other. If both do so, ego's incentives only affect alter's behavior. This "s…
Lifting the veil of ignorance: An experiment on the contagiousness of norm violations
Norm violations can be contagious. Previous research analyzed two mechanisms of why knowledge about others' norm violations triggers its spread: (1) actors lower their subjective beliefs about the probability or severity of punishment or (2) they condition their compliance on others' compliance. While earlier field studies could hardly disentangle both effects, we use a laboratory experiment which eliminates any punishment threat. Subjects (n = 4…
Game Theory
Game theory analyzes strategic decision making of multiple interdependent actors and has become influential in economics, political science, and sociology. It provides novel insights in criminology because it is a universal language for the unification of the social and behavioral sciences and allows deriving new hypotheses from fundamental assumptions about decision making. This chapter first reviews foundations and assumptions of game theory, b…
Vernetzung und Positionierung der Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (KZfSS) in der länder-, disziplinen- und sprachübergreifenden Diskussion
Does the Winner Take it All? Increasing Inequality in Scientific Authorship
Scientific authorship has become a hot topic in the social sciences. We present three avenues addressing this topic from different perspectives to illustrate in which direction research on inequalities in the context of scientific authorship and academic publications may move. We draw on data from the Web of Science focusing on the field of sociology. We demonstrate that (i) the alphabetical order of co‐authors' names sends out an ambiguous signa…
Values in adolescent friendship networks
Values—the motivational goals that define what is important to us—guide our decisions and actions every day. Their importance is established in a long line of research investigating their universality across countries and their evolution from childhood to adulthood. In adolescence, value structures are subject to substantial change, as life becomes increasingly social. Value change has thus far been understood to operate independently within each…
Prosocial Behaviour in Interethnic Encounters: Evidence from a Field Experiment with High- and Low-Status Immigrants
Recent waves of immigration have changed the demographic face of European societies and fueled considerable debate over the consequences of ethnic diversity for social cohesion. One prominent argument in this debate holds that individuals are less willing to extend trust and solidarity across ethnic lines, leading to lower social capital in multiethnic communities. We present a direct test of this proposition in a field experiment involving nativ…
Satisfaction of scientists during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown
The discussion of the social, political and economic consequences of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic mainly revolves around negative effects. This study exploits a unique opportunity and analyses data from a survey ( N = 13,316) that happened to be in the field in the months of the development and eventual manifestation of the COVID-19 pandemic. It documents slightly higher levels of average general life satisfaction as well as of satis…
Mapping mental models of science communication: How academics in Germany, Austria and Switzerland understand and practice science communication
The mental models that individual scholars have of science communication – how it works, what it is supposed to achieve and so on – shape the way these academics actually communicate to the public. But these mental models, and their prevalence among scholars, have rarely been analysed. Drawing on a large-scale, representative web survey of academics at universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland ( n = 15,778) from 2020, we identify three men…
Handle with Care: Implementation of the List Experiment and Crosswise Model in a Large-scale Survey on Academic Misconduct
This research analyzes the effectiveness of the list experiment and crosswise model in measuring self-plagiarism and data manipulation. Both methods were implemented in a large-scale survey of academics on social norms and academic misconduct. As the results lend little confidence about the effectiveness of the methods, researchers are best advised to avoid them or, at best, to handle them with care
Rebel without a Cause: The Effects of Social Origins and Disposable Income on Rule Violations
Are upper-class individuals more inclined to violate rules? Using behavioural data, recent studies have challenged the traditional assumption of upper social class members being less rule violating, while other studies find no or opposite effects. We bring together behavioural decision-making games with traditional survey measures in a unique setup to re-evaluate the proposed relation between social class and rule violations, distinguishing betwe…
Are questionable research practices considered a successful career strategy? A novel implementation of the implicit association test
Scientific misconduct and questionable research practices (QRPs) pose significant challenges to the integrity of academic research. This study therefore investigates scientists’ implicit associations regarding misconduct and its relationship with perceived academic success. Employing the Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT), the attitudes of 11,747 scientists across Austria, Germany, and Switzerland were examined. Results suggest th…
Prosocial environments promote individual success: Evidence from a school network panel study
Why do we care for others? Several studies have shown that people holding altruistic dispositions tend to be more successful than others. Since caring for others is often costly, theoretical arguments propose that the social context plays a crucial role in determining whether altruism is advantageous and, thus, can be sustained over time. Our study empirically investigates the underlying social context and mechanisms by which altruism can be bene…
Why social norms matter in science: Determinants of misconduct in German-speaking Europe
Science studies have often emphasized the “what” of misconduct while neglecting the equally important “why”. Using a sociological lens, we shed light on the mechanisms underlying scientific misconduct and contribute to theoretical debates on its causes. We propose several potential individual and structural drivers of scientific misconduct, including alienation, rational considerations, and social norms and test these hypotheses using survey data…
Psychology (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Economics (11 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Social science (6 works) · Epistemology (4 works)