Experimental Methods: Eliciting and Measuring Social Norms

Gary Charness, Eugen Dimant, Uri Gneezy and Erin Krupka

No 11840, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Eliciting social norms is essential for understanding a range of behaviors in economic contexts. This paper reviews key experimental approaches to social-norm measurement, comparing the methods, practical considerations, and specific conditions under which each is most effective. We discuss various social norm elicitation techniques, including coordination-based, opinion-based, and distributional approaches. Our findings suggest that coordination-game approaches are the most widely adopted and tested; they deliver robust results, particularly in contexts with a single dominant norm. Importantly, while early methods focused on eliciting mean or modal normative beliefs, recent work shifts focus to eliciting beliefs about the distribution of normative beliefs. This allows the researcher to draw inferences on the degree of uncertainty that underlies norm assessments. This paper aims to help experimentalists and practitioners choose suitable norm-elicitation methods that are aligned with research objectives and logistical constraints.

Keywords: methodology; norm elicitation; social norms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D91 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-soc
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