Norms and norm change - driven by social preferences and Kantian morality

Ingela Alger and Peter Bayer

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

Abstract: Norms indicate which behaviors are commonly expected and/or considered to be morally right. We examine how such norms come about and change by modeling a population of individuals with preferences – found elsewhere to be evolutionarily founded – combining ma-terial self-interest, Kantian moral concerns, and attitudes towards being materially ahead and behind others. The individuals interact in a public goods game. We identify conditions on preferences and beliefs which promote, respectively hamper, spontaneous norm change. Cru-cially, an individual’s preferences and beliefs about the material benefits uniquely determines her threshold for collective behavior: s/he contributes if and only if sufficiently many others do so. However, those with sufficiently strong Kantian concerns contribute regardless.

Keywords: moral norms; descriptive norms; social norms; social-Kantian preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-hpe, nep-mic and nep-soc
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Working Paper: Norms and norm change - driven by social preferences and Kantian morality (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:130038

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