On Social Norms and Observability in (Dis)honest Behavior

Christoph Huber, Christos Litsios, Annika S. Nieper and Timo Promann
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Christoph Huber: WU Vienna University of Economics and Business
Annika S. Nieper: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

No 2nxv8, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Transparency and observability have been shown to foster ethical decision-making as people tend to comply with an underlying norm for honesty. In a die-rolling experiment, we investigate whether observability can have detrimental effects, however, in situations implying a social norm for dishonesty. We thus introduce a norm nudge towards honesty or dishonesty and make participants' decisions observable and open to other participants' judgment in order to manipulate the observability of people's decisions as well as the underlying social norm. We find that a nudge towards honesty indeed increases the level of honesty, suggesting that such a norm nudge can successfully induce behavioral change. Our introduction of social image concerns via observability, however, does not affect honesty and does not interact with our norm nudge.

Date: 2022-06-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-soc
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Journal Article: On social norms and observability in (dis)honest behavior (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:2nxv8

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/2nxv8

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