Why do People Punish the Rule Breakers?: The Sustainability of Social Norms

Indervir Singh

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper attempts to provide reasons for sustainability of social norms by considering internalization as the basic motivation behind the punishment behavior. A society requires people to implant the social norms in others, and punishing the rule breaker provides a person utility by letting him feel good through fulfilling his responsibility. The responsibility increases with closeness of relationship, therefore relatives and friends tend to punish the rule breaker harder. The breaking of a norm also acts as a 'bad name' for rule breaker's relatives and friends, which, further, prompts them to punish him. Since, punishing the rule breaker also benefits non-punishers, some people may start selling the punishment activity, if the benefited people, due to their internalization of the norm, pay punishers in the form of money, support etc.

Keywords: social norms; internalization; bad name; power asymmetry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D03 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-hpe and nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:21691

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