Norms and norm change - driven by social Kantian preferences

Ingela Alger
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Peter Bayer

No 24-1605, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: Norms indicate which behaviors are common and/or considered morally right. They may differ across space and time. I show that social-Kantian preferences, which incorporate two hitherto neglected factors, can explain this. Kantian moral concerns drive personal moral norms and unconditional following thereof; attitudes towards making a different material sacrifice than others motivate conditioning own on others’ behavior. Conditions promoting/hampering spontaneous changes in the behavioral norm (the modal behavior) are identified: individuals with strong Kantian concerns are leaders of social change; those with weak Kantian concerns but strong enough inequity aversion are followers. Implications for policy interventions aimed at changing norms, and important ifferences with other preference classes (altruism and conformity) are discussed.

Keywords: social-Kantian preferences; personal moral norms; behavioral norms; social; norms; conditional cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-12, Revised 2026-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-hpe, nep-mic and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/docu ... 2024/wp_tse_1605.pdf Full Text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Norms and norm change - driven by social-Kantian preferences (2025)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:130038

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().