Identifying Social Norms using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?

Abstract

We introduce a method for identifying social norms, based on the property that they reflect collective perceptions regarding the appropriateness of behaviors. We demonstrate that the norms we elicit, along with a simple model combining concern for normcompliance with utility for money, predict changes in behavior across several variants of the dictator game. Our findings indicate that individuals care about monetary payoffs and the social appropriateness of any action taken. Further, we find that a social norm is best characterized as a profile of varying degrees of social appropriateness over the entire menu of actions available to a decision maker.

A Multimethod Approach to Identifying Norms and Normative Expectations Within a Corporate Hierarchy: Evidence from the Financial Services Industry

“…We combine multiple methods by adding an incentive compatible elicitation protocol to traditional vignette-based survey methods, and combining this with a second attitudinal survey and a second experiment about behavior related to the occupation of many subjects. We adapt the method of Krupka and Weber (2009) to a field setting in a financial services firm, and in so doing also extend the protocol to identify norms across groups in the organizational hierarchy and the beliefs each group has about the normative expectations of the others, as well as separating two different norm constructs (group and personal). We use these data to construct measures of normative alignment (between levels of the hierarchy and between the norms of employees and those of their peers and their leaders) and we correlate these measures with indicators of individual on-the-job behavior that are reported in a survey (such as job satisfaction) and observed in a controlled laboratory experiment (dishonest advice).…”

“…We follow this literature in distinguishing what one "ought" to do, or injunctive norms, from customs or actions that people regularly take, or descriptive norms (Bicchieri, 2006, Deutsch andGerard, 1955). Both kinds of norms influence behavior (Herrbach and Mignonac 2007;Cialdini et al 1990;Krupka and Weber 2009;Bicchieri and Xiao 2009;Gneezy et al 2010). However, our primary focus in this paper is on injunctive norms, i.e., those described by Elster (1989a) as prescribing what one "should do" or "should not do.…”

“…The norm elicitation method first proposed by Krupka and Weber (2009) captures this joint recognition by using a specific behavioral economic experiment--a coordination game over rating the ethical appropriateness of actions for an ethical dilemma which we describe to subjects. Because social norms reflect "collective perceptions," coordination games present a more effective way to identify such socially-held judgments than the more typical survey approaches.…”

“…Using a novel research design which includes two behavioral economic experiments as well as more conventional survey instruments, we demonstrate the value of combining multiple methods so that we can elicit both ethical norms and related behavior. Specifically, we adapt a new method of identifying ethical norms using an economic experiment that is incentive compatible (Krupka and Weber, 2009) to a field setting, and extend this method to capture the manner in which norms and beliefs about norms vary within a corporate hierarchy. We then combine the norm-elicitation technique with a survey and a separate experiment measuring advice-giving behavior, with the same subjects in the same field setting.…”

“…The norm elicitation technique of Krupka and Weber (2009) represents an important innovation in the study of norms. This method combines the versatility of the survey approach with an incentive compatible mechanism that induces subjects to reveal their true beliefs about the norm for a situation that is described to them.…”