Nudging Enforcers: How Norm Perceptions and Motives for Lying Shape Sanctions

Abstract

The enforcement of social norms is the fabric of a functioning society. Through the lens of two experiments, we examine how motives for lying and norm perceptions steer enforcement. Our contribution is to investigate the extent to which norm breaches are sanctioned, how normnudges affect the observed punishment behavior, and how the enforcement is linked to norm perceptions. Using a representative U.S. sample, Experiment 1 provides robust evidence that norm-enforcement is not only sensitive to the extent of the observed transgression (= size of the lie) but also to its consequences (= whether the lie remedies or creates payoff inequalities). We also find norm enforcers to be sensitive to different norm-nudges that convey social information about actual lying behavior or its social disapproval. To explain the punishment patterns, Experiment 2 examines how norms are perceived across different transgressions and how normnudges change these perceptions. We observe a malleability of social norm perceptions: norm nudges are most effective when pre-existing norms are vague. Importantly, we also find that punishment patterns in the first experiment closely follow these norm perceptions. Our findings suggest that norm enforcement can be successfully nudged and thus represent an expedient alternative to standard incentive-based interventions.

Social punishment for breaching restrictions during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…In fact, we found that the monthly income change was positively associated with the donation amount. Similar to previous findings (Bolton & Ockenfels, 2000; Dimant & Gesche, 2020; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999), these results imply that participants were generally concerned about disadvantageous inequality. In contrast, the interaction term between the income change and the norm‐breaker treatment was insignificant and negative (Table 3).…”

“…We believe that the present findings contribute to the empirical literature on the effect of social norms on behavior. Existing research mainly focuses on a particular norm, for example, lying (Dimant & Gesche, 2020), expressing xenophobic views (Bursztyn, Egorov, & Fiorin, 2020), and tax evasion (Dulleck et al., 2016; Hallsworth et al., 2017). However, our findings imply that people's behavior, including punishment toward norm‐breakers, can be affected by their perception of different types of norms.…”

“…Studies indicate that people's behavior is influenced by their equity concerns (Bolton & Ockenfels, 2000; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999). For example, according to Dimant and Gesche (2020), people severely punish norm‐violating behavior (i.e., lying), when norm violation leads to more inequity. In this study, we are concerned with the motivation for inequity aversion, which may affect the donation decision in two ways.…”

“…We will test two hypotheses by examining how different treatments affect participants' costly punishment behavior. First, people are likely to sanction norm violators (Dimant & Gesche, 2020; Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004; Herrmann et al., 2008; Winter & Zhang, 2018). Therefore, we hypothesize that breaching restrictions during the COVID‐19 pandemic stimulates costly punishment behavior (Hypothesis 1).…”

Efficient Institutions and Effective Deterrence: On Timing and Uncertainty of Formal Sanctions

“…We argue that swiftness can serve as a useful tool for policy makers to design more efficient and/or potentially also less expensive institutional deterrence mechanisms. Naturally, the concepts of decision-making 1 Recent scholarly contributions have broadened this perspective and emphasized the importance of institutional structures, including staff rotations in the public administration, whistleblower protection, the bite of audits and formal punishment, and use of norm-nudge interventions (Shleifer & Vishny, 1993;Abbink, 2004;Nikiforakis, 2008;Sutter et al, 2010;Serra, 2011;Balafoutas & Nikiforakis, 2012;Abbink et al, 2014;Khadjavi, 2014;Engel et al, 2016;Buckenmaier et al, 2018;Bicchieri & Dimant, 2019;Hajikhameneh & Rubin, 2019;Dimant & Gesche, 2020). 2 Classically, celerity referred exclusively to the temporal delay of a potential sanction following a transgression.…”