Even arbitrary norms influence moral decision-making

Campbell Pryor, Amy Perfors and Piers D. L. Howe ()
Additional contact information
Campbell Pryor: University of Melbourne
Amy Perfors: University of Melbourne
Piers D. L. Howe: University of Melbourne

Nature Human Behaviour, 2019, vol. 3, issue 1, 57-62

Abstract: Abstract It is well known that individuals tend to copy behaviours that are common among other people—a phenomenon known as the descriptive norm effect1–3. This effect has been successfully used to encourage a range of real-world prosocial decisions4–7, such as increasing organ donor registrations8. However, it is still unclear why it occurs. Here, we show that people conform to social norms, even when they understand that the norms in question are arbitrary and do not reflect the actual preferences of other people. These results hold across multiple contexts and when controlling for confounds such as anchoring or mere-exposure effects. Moreover, we demonstrate that the degree to which participants conform to an arbitrary norm is determined by the degree to which they self-identify with the group that exhibits the norm. Two prominent explanations of norm adherence—the informational and social sanction accounts2,9–11—cannot explain these results, suggesting that these theories need to be supplemented by an additional mechanism that takes into account self-identity.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0489-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:nat:nathum:v:3:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41562-018-0489-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-018-0489-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().