Do the right thing: but only if others do so

Abstract

Social norms play an important role in individual decision making. We argue that two different expectations influence our choice to obey a norm: what we expect others to do (empirical expectations) and what we believe others think we ought to do (normative expectations). Little is known about the relative importance of these two types of expectation in individuals' decisions, an issue that is particularly important when normative and empirical expectations are in conflict (e.g., systemic corruption, high crime cities). In this paper, we report data from Dictator game experiments where we exogenously manipulate dictators' expectations in the direction of either selfishness or fairness. When normative and empirical expectations are in conflict, we find that empirical expectations about other dictators' choices significantly predict a dictator's own choice. However, dictators' expectations regarding what other dictators think ought to be done do not have a significant impact on their decisions after controlling for empirical expectations. Our findings about the crucial influence of empirical expectations are important for designing institutions or policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behavior.

Moral Opinions are Conditional on the Behavior of Others

“…In a related article on decision-making in a dictator game, Bicchieri and Xiao (2009) studied normative and empirical expectations. Normative expectations are what we believe others think we ought to do, 3 while empirical expectations are what we think others will do.…”

“…A person's opinions of what he or she ought to do in a given situation are called "personal normative beliefs" (Bicchieri and Xiao 2009;Budd and Spencer 1985). In the current experiment, subjects participate in a public good game and report their personal normative beliefs.…”

Broken Contracts and Hidden Partnerships: Theory and Experiment

“…Another possibility is that players follow descriptive norms that emerge during the game (see, Bicchieri and Xiao, 2009). In our case, Player C's decision is realized only when B chooses In; however, in doing so, B indicates that it is appropriate to choose a selfish option.…”

When the group encourages extramarital sex

“…We would be able to explore the existence of social norms and attempt to test the hypothesis put forward by Bicchieri and Xiao (2008) that individuals tend to disobey a norm, such as sexual fidelity, when their empirical expectations about the actual behavior of the people in their social group do not match their normative expectations of how others think one should behave. In addition, we could try to measure the effect of the anticipated positive and negative social sanctions on individual decisions in order to better understand the mechanisms of social pressure and the role of different motives for compliance with norms.…”

“…Recent research on the operational definitions of social norms has revealed that, in addition to believing that certain behavior is socially interpreted as the right way to act in a particular situation (normative expectations), individuals need to perceive that there is a substantial level of compliance with the norm (empirical expectations) in order to be motivated to obey it (Bicchieri 2006). Moreover, some experimental work has shown that individuals are more prone to violate the norm in situations in which they believe that only a small proportion of their social group actually comply with it, even if they also believe that most of the people in the group think that the rule should be followed (Bicchieri and Xiao 2008). In sum, the behavior of others is expected to play an important role in explaining individual actions.…”