SOEP-IS Study Confirms the Knobe Effect

A study conducted within the SOEP Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS) by Christoph Schmidt-Petri, Daniel Labarca Pinto, and Carsten Schröder with 2,295 respondents confirms that people are much more likely to attribute intentionality to harmful side effects than to beneficial ones.

The findings replicate a classic result from experimental philosophy using representative population data and highlight the potential of SOEP-IS for innovative behavioral research.

Schmidt-Petri, Christoph, Daniel Labarca Pinto, and Carsten Schröder. 2026. Quantifying the Knobe effect: population-level patterns and heterogeneity analyses. Philosophical Psychology, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2026.2676274