12.11 PD Challenging moral appeals: Towards inviting shared responsibility

Aim of the project

Many societal challenges depend on contributions from multiple actors. Sustainable development goals, such as advancing climate action, reducing inequalities, or building sustainable cities and communities (United Nations, n.d.), cannot be achieved by any individual, organisation, or public institution. These challenges require forms of cooperation in which interdependent actors across collective contexts each contribute to a broader outcome, while no single actor controls or bears responsibility for it alone. Calls to responsibility are common in such settings but often backfire. When appeals are heard as blame, accusation, or pressure, they may evoke defensiveness, withdrawal, or minimal compliance. This project examines what is required for responsibility in these contexts to become a shared, self-endorsed commitment: one that people recognise as meaningful, embrace together, and sustain over time.

Theoretical background

Cooperation in “many-hands” settings depends on actors being able to rely on one another to uphold their responsibilities. Yet accountability is often unclear in these settings, creating responsibility voids that undermine cooperation and collective action (Braham & van Hees, 2012). One approach to resolving these problems involves specifying the allocation or division of responsibility amongst actors. This has value in relatively small groups where dependencies are clear and contributions can be monitored. In grand societal challenges, however, actors belong to multiple groups, occupy shifting roles, and face diffuse interdependencies, making it difficult to calculate necessary contributions or assign individual responsibilities for collective outcomes.

The project addresses this cooperation challenge by integrating insights from Self-Determination Theory and the Social Identity Approach. From a self-determination perspective, responsibility is more likely to be taken up in a lasting way when people can endorse it with a sense of autonomy, belonging, and competence (Deci & Ryan, 2000). From a social identity perspective, this also depends on whether the responsibility appeal is anchored in a valued and meaningful we: whether people recognise themselves in the group to whom the appeal is addressed, trust relevant others to do their part, and see the proposed norms and expectations as legitimate expressions of the group’s identity (Ellemers & Haslam, 2011; Tajfel & Turner, 1979).

Work on moral regulation shows that responsibility appeals can backfire when they threaten peoples' moral self-view or convey distrust, leading to defensiveness, justification, distancing, or surface-level compliance (van Nunspeet & Ellemers, 2024). The project therefore examines what makes responsibility appeals inviting rather than demanding, and how individuals come to internalise shared responsibility for achieving collective outcomes. Here, we use the term shared responsibility to indicate a group-level psychological state in which interdependent actors adopt a shared intention to pursue a jointly valued outcome, and each accepts and enacts their part of responsibility as a self-endorsed commitment to achieving that outcome.

Research focus and objectives

This project is part of SCOOP Challenge 12 on Shared Responsibility, which addresses how to devise sustainable forms of shared responsibility for societal “many-hands” problems that still allow for some degree of individual accountability. Within this challenge, the project connects insights from research on cooperation, group processes, and behavioural change to the question of when responsibility appeals invite uptake versus prompt disengagement.

The project centres on three conditions proposed as critical for inviting shared responsibility in societal settings. First, shared identity and purpose: whether the collective aim is experienced as something that belongs to us, rather than as an external target imposed on separate individuals. Second, mutual trust and confidence: whether actors can rely on one another and on the process organising their contributions, supported by role clarity, procedural fairness, and visible follow-through. Third, internalised group norms: whether responsible conduct becomes upheld voluntarily as part of what people see as appropriate and legitimate within the group, rather than only when behaviour is monitored or enforced.

The project synthesises findings from the Moral Responsibility cluster, including PhD work on individual-level responses to moral appeals, group-level dynamics of responsibility attribution, and applied settings where responsibility is voiced. Building on this foundation, it develops a diagnostic rubric for evaluating intervention impact, also drawing on prior work on sustainable organisational commitment (Veenstra, 2025). This rubric helps evaluate the extent to which interventions cultivate conditions that sustain engagement over time, rather than producing only short-term behavioural shifts.

Key research questions

1. Under which conditions do invitations to shared responsibility mobilise sustainable societal engagement, and when do they instead prompt disengagement?

2. How can insights into underlying behavioural mechanisms inform the design and evaluation of interventions that seek to support sustainable societal engagement over time?

Societal relevance

The project contributes to efforts to move beyond approaches that either address individuals in isolation or assume that system-level change alone will suffice (Bingley et al., 2023; Caggiano et al., 2023). Many societal outcomes require cooperation among groups of people, organisations, and institutions. By clarifying what makes responsibility-taking psychologically and socially sustainable, this project improves understanding of how cooperation can remain stable and valuable over time (Wittek et al., 2025).

The resulting insights can support organisations, policymakers, and practitioners in designing effective interventions and accountability practices that are less likely to trigger resistance and instead support shared ownership of collective goals. This aligns with SCOOP's broader mission to contribute to developing evidence-based interventions for resilient societies.

This postdoc project is part of a broader SCOOP research line on moral responsibility and motivation. Related projects examine responses to moral responsibility appeals at the individual level, the group level, and in applied settings, regarding voice behaviour and empowerment strategies.