Rule orientation and behavior: Development and validation of a scale measuring individual acceptance of rule violation.

Abstract

There is individual variation in the extent to which individuals believe it is acceptable to violate legal rules. However, we lack a specific measure that assesses this key internal element of legal decision-making and offending. This article describes the development, validation, and testing of the Rule Orientation scale. At its core, the construct captures the extent to which one thinks about rules in a rigid, rule-oriented manner or in a manner that recognizes exceptions. In the first study, we develop the Rule Orientation scale, demonstrate its convergent and divergent validity with key legal and moral reasoning scales, and find that Rule Orientation relates to hypothetical offending behavior across a variety of low-level crimes. In the second study, we examine whether Rule Orientation predicts the propensity to engage in digital piracy both with and without the explicit threat of punishment. The results indicate that Rule Orientation plays a crucial role in predicting offending behavior and, importantly, does so across enforcement contexts. The findings suggest that an individual with low Rule Orientation may be able to justify offending regardless of whether a system explicitly declares an enforcement campaign, regardless of how the individual perceives the severity of the threatened sanction, and regardless of whether the individual believes social norms support law violation. In understanding ethical decision-making, criminal decision-making, and other strands of legal decision-making, identifying such individual variation is crucial.

Compliance in the 1.5 Meter Society: Longitudinal Analysis of Citizens’ Adherence to COVID-19 Mitigation Measures in a Representative Sample in the Netherlands

“…We measured participants' generalized belief in the acceptability of violating legal rules by means of the 12-item Rule Orientation scale (Fine et al 2016). This instrument assesses the perceived acceptability of breaking legal rules across a range of situations (e.g., when the rule is against one's moral principles; when the rule is not enforced; when others think that breaking the rule is justified, etc; 1 = "strongly disagree", 7 = "strongly agree").…”

Why Did Israelis Comply with COVID-19 Mitigation Measures During the Initial First Wave Lockdown?

“…We also know that duty to obey the law associates with particular forms of moral reasoning some individuals may have more than others, such as moral disengagement and moral firmness (Fine et al 2020, Fine et al 2016. Thus, although we did not study this here, differences in moral reasoning may well have played a role in compliance here.…”

“…To do so, we drew from insights about compliance, and why people obey or break rules, from psychology, criminology, sociology, and economics ( have not focused specifically on variables that are known to explain variation in compliance (Van Rooij and Sokol 2021 (Forthcoming)). The independent variables that are included in the present study comprise substantive moral support for the measures (e.g., Tyler 1997Tyler , 2006, costs of compliance (e.g., Paternoster and Simpson 1993, Donovan and Blake 1992, Botchkovar, Tittle, and Antonaccio 2009, deterrence (e.g., Nagin 2013, Apel 2013), capacity to comply (e.g., Van Rooij 2021 (Forthcoming)) and opportunity to violate the measures (Cohen andFelson 1979, Clarke 1980), impulsivity (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990, Pratt and Lloyd 2021 (forthcoming)), descriptive social norms (e.g., Goldstein 2004, Schultz et al 2007), obligation to obey the law (e.g., Fine et al 2016, Tyler 2017, and political orientation (e.g., Prior 2013, Spohr 2017. For a detailed reasoning behind each of these variables, see Van Rooij, .…”

Anxiety about digital security and terrorism, and support for counter-terror measures

“…The majority of Americans who viewed the threat of future terrorism highly likely also supported anti-terrorism policies domestically and globally (Huddy et al, 2005). According to neutralisation theory (Fine et al, 2016), the Americans from these studies could deny the significance of such sacrifice or believe in its greater value. Thus, although people can recognise the potential benefit for the counter-terror measures, it seems to be the case only under an appropriate legal basis (Potoglou et al, 2017).…”