ABSTRACT
Abstract: This paper presents a new theoretical and empirical approach to the investigation of responsibility, named the ‘Everyday-experience approach to responsibility’. Its aim is to study the psychological mechanisms which accompany the experience of responsibility. In order to make possible the investigation of responsibility in daily life, a theoretical unit, the responsibility situation, is constructed. This responsibility situation is described by a theoretical framework and systematically studied empirically. Two studies, an interview study and a diary study, involved the investigation of 515 situations in which humans of a western society felt responsible. Results reveal the internal and external conditions more, and less, favourable for the elicitation of responsibility.
