On social norms and observability in (dis)honest behavior

Christoph Huber, Christos Litsios, Annika Nieper and Timo Promann

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023, vol. 212, issue C, 1086-1099

Abstract: Transparency and observability have been shown to foster ethical decision-making as people tend to comply with an underlying norm for honesty. However, in situations implying a social norm for dishonesty, this might be different. In a die-rolling experiment, we investigate whether observability can also have detrimental effects. We thus introduce a norm nudge toward honesty or dishonesty and make participants’ decisions observable and open to the judgement of other participants in order to manipulate the observability of people’s decisions as well as the underlying social norm. We find that a nudge toward honesty indeed increases the level of honesty, suggesting that such a norm nudge can successfully induce behavioral change. Our introduction of social image concerns via observability, however, does not affect honesty and does not interact with our norm nudge.

Keywords: Lying; Cheating; Social norms; Image concerns; Nudging; Behavioral change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D01 D91 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: On Social Norms and Observability in (Dis)honest Behavior (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:212:y:2023:i:c:p:1086-1099

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.06.019

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