Norm compliance affects perceptual decisions through modulation of a starting point bias

Abstract

Adaptive decisions in social contexts depend on both perceptual information and social expectations or norms. These are potentially in conflict when certain choices are beneficial for an individual, but societal rules mandate a different course of action. To resolve such a conflict, the reliability of information has to be balanced against potentially deleterious effects of non-compliance such as ostracism. In this study, we systematically investigated how interactions between perceptual and social influences affect decision-relevant cognitive processes. In a direction-of-motion discrimination task, participants received perceptual information alongside information on other players' choices. In addition, we created conflict scenarios where players’ choices affected other participants' monetary rewards dependent on whether their choices were in line or against the opinion of the other players. Importantly, we altered the strength of this manipulation in two separate experiments by contrasting motivations of either preventing harm or providing a benefit to others. Behavioural analyses and computational models of perceptual decisions showed that participants successfully integrated perceptual with social information. Participants' reliance on social information was effectively modulated in conflict situations. Critically, these effects were augmented when the strength of social norms was increased, indexing conditions under which social norms effectively influence decisions. These results inform theories of social influence by providing an account of how higher order goals like social norm compliance affect perceptual decisions.

How do Muslim community members perceive Covid-19 risk reduction recommendations - a UK qualitative study?

“…However, following social norms and adhering to centralized rules is contingent on recognition of laws as essential for social order and that compliance must override personal interest [ 29 , 34 ]. Social expectations or norms that influence adaptive decision-making may come into conflict when certain choices are beneficial for the individual whilst societal rules mandates a different course of action [ 35 ]. In our study, provision of information and guidance was noted to be problematic for a variety of reasons, leading some to question the legitimacy of the virus and its seriousness.…”

Wise or mad crowds? The cognitive mechanisms underlying information cascades

“…As a basis, we took a well-established modeling framework of individual decision-making that models decisions as a dynamic process in which information is accumulated as evidence over time until a threshold is reached [e.g., (19,20)]. This evidence accumulation process has been successful in accounting for a wide range of decisions in domains including perception (21), memory (19), categorization (22), preference (23), and inference (17) and has successfully been applied to analyze the influence of static social information (24,25). We extended this evidence accumulation framework by showing how the choices of others are integrated with personal information and together accumulated as evidence.…”

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“…Negative effects of science politicization on public trust have been found in research on health [ 26 ] and other ‘hot’ issues, such as climate change [ 21 , 27 , 28 ]. Thus, possibly due to the politicization and polarization of the public debate [ 29 , 30 ], it is not surprising that behavioural responses to calls for public compliance could well be sensitive to information signals and the source of communication [ 31 , 32 ].…”