Norms Make Preferences Social

Erik Kimbrough and Alexander Vostroknutov ()
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Alexander Vostroknutov: Maastricht University, http://www.vostroknutov.com/

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Abstract: We develop a unifying explanation for prosocial behavior. We argue that people care not about others’ payoffs per se, but whether their own behavior accords with social norms. Individuals who are sensitive to norms will adhere to them so long as they observe others doing the same. A model formalizing this generates both prosociality (without relying on explicit distributional preferences) and well-known context effects (for which distributional preferences cannot account). A simple experiment allows us to measure individual-level normsensitivity and to show that norm-sensitivity explains heterogeneity in prosociality in public goods, dictator, ultimatum, and trust games.

Keywords: experimental economics; norms; social preferences; reciprocity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59
Date: 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Journal Article: NORMS MAKE PREFERENCES SOCIAL (2016)
Journal Article: Norms Make Preferences Social (2016)
Working Paper: Norms Make Preferences Social (2014)
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