Descriptive Norms and Guilt Aversion

Anastasia Danilov; Kiryl Khalmetski; Dirk Sliwka

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.002

Descriptive Norms and Guilt Aversion

Anastasia Danilov, Kiryl Khalmetski, Dirk Sliwka

Department of Economics

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5 Citations (SciVal)

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Abstract

It has been argued that guilt aversion (the desire to meet others’ expectations) and the social norm compliance (the desire to act similarly to other individuals in the same situation) are important drivers of human behavior. However, as we show in a theoretical model, these two motives are empirically indistinguishable when only one signal (either the expectation of a person affected by the choice or a signal about the descriptive norm) is revealed as each of these signals transmit information on the other benchmark. We address this problem by running an experiment in which signals for both benchmarks are revealed simultaneously. We find that both types of information affect dictator transfers in a one-shot game, yet the information about the behavior of others has a stronger effect than the disclosed recipient's expectation. The effect of the recipient's expectation is non-monotonic and becomes negative for very high expectations. We provide further evidence for the importance of guilt aversion in a second experiment where we display the recipient's expectation and the expectation of a randomly picked recipient of another dictator.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	293-311
Number of pages	19
Journal	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume	191
Early online date	25 Sept 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.002
Publication status	Published - 30 Nov 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This paper supersedes a previous paper titled “Norms and Guilt” (CESifo Working Paper No. 6999, https://www.cesifo.org/node/36295 ). We thank Loukas Balafoutas, Pierpaolo Battigalli, Gary Charness, Eugen Dimant, Martin Dufwenberg, Erin Krupka, Elena Manzoni, Roberto Weber and workshop participants in Soleto and Nice for helpful comments. Financial support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the Research Unit “Design and Behavior” (FOR 1371) and CRC TRR 190 “Rationality and competition” (Project number 280092119) is gratefully acknowledged.

Keywords

Conformity
Dictator game
Experiment
Guilt aversion
Social norms

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.002

JEBO_Final_versionAccepted author manuscript, 655 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

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abstract = "It has been argued that guilt aversion (the desire to meet others{\textquoteright} expectations) and the social norm compliance (the desire to act similarly to other individuals in the same situation) are important drivers of human behavior. However, as we show in a theoretical model, these two motives are empirically indistinguishable when only one signal (either the expectation of a person affected by the choice or a signal about the descriptive norm) is revealed as each of these signals transmit information on the other benchmark. We address this problem by running an experiment in which signals for both benchmarks are revealed simultaneously. We find that both types of information affect dictator transfers in a one-shot game, yet the information about the behavior of others has a stronger effect than the disclosed recipient's expectation. The effect of the recipient's expectation is non-monotonic and becomes negative for very high expectations. We provide further evidence for the importance of guilt aversion in a second experiment where we display the recipient's expectation and the expectation of a randomly picked recipient of another dictator.",

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note = "Funding Information: This paper supersedes a previous paper titled “Norms and Guilt” (CESifo Working Paper No. 6999, https://www.cesifo.org/node/36295 ). We thank Loukas Balafoutas, Pierpaolo Battigalli, Gary Charness, Eugen Dimant, Martin Dufwenberg, Erin Krupka, Elena Manzoni, Roberto Weber and workshop participants in Soleto and Nice for helpful comments. Financial support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the Research Unit “Design and Behavior” (FOR 1371) and CRC TRR 190 “Rationality and competition” (Project number 280092119) is gratefully acknowledged. ",

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N2 - It has been argued that guilt aversion (the desire to meet others’ expectations) and the social norm compliance (the desire to act similarly to other individuals in the same situation) are important drivers of human behavior. However, as we show in a theoretical model, these two motives are empirically indistinguishable when only one signal (either the expectation of a person affected by the choice or a signal about the descriptive norm) is revealed as each of these signals transmit information on the other benchmark. We address this problem by running an experiment in which signals for both benchmarks are revealed simultaneously. We find that both types of information affect dictator transfers in a one-shot game, yet the information about the behavior of others has a stronger effect than the disclosed recipient's expectation. The effect of the recipient's expectation is non-monotonic and becomes negative for very high expectations. We provide further evidence for the importance of guilt aversion in a second experiment where we display the recipient's expectation and the expectation of a randomly picked recipient of another dictator.

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Descriptive Norms and Guilt Aversion

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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