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How history and convention create norms: An experimental study

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  • Guala, Francesco
  • Mittone, Luigi

Abstract

According to a tradition that goes back to David Hume, social conventions have a natural tendency to turn into norms. Normativity increases compliance and stabilizes individual behaviour in spite of changes in incentives. In this paper we report experimental data that confirm this insight and encourage mildly optimistic conclusions regarding human sociality: habits provide extra glue that keeps individuals together, and prevents them from succumbing to anti-social temptation even when punishment is unlikely.

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  • Guala, Francesco & Mittone, Luigi, 2010. "How history and convention create norms: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 749-756, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:31:y:2010:i:4:p:749-756
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    2. Giuseppe Danese & Luigi Mittone, 2015. "Norms and trades: An experimental investigation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(3), pages 259-282, August.
    3. Francesco Fallucchi & Daniele Nosenzo, 2022. "The coordinating power of social norms," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 1-25, February.
    4. Michael Foley & Rory Smead & Patrick Forber & Christoph Riedl, 2021. "Avoiding the bullies: The resilience of cooperation among unequals," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(4), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Przepiorka, Wojtek & Andreas, Diekmann, 2021. "Parochial cooperation and the emergence of signalling norms," SocArXiv 9tg2f, Center for Open Science.
    6. James Alm, 2019. "What Motivates Tax Compliance?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 353-388, April.
    7. Jia Liu & Yohanes E. Riyanto, 2017. "Information transparency and equilibrium selection in coordination games: an experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(3), pages 415-433, March.
    8. Francesco GUALA & Frank HINDRIKS, 2013. "A Unified Social Ontology," Departmental Working Papers 2013-20, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    9. James Alm & Matthias Kasper, 2020. "Laboratory Experiments," Working Papers 2008, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    10. Andreas Diekmann, 2022. "Emergence of and compliance with new social norms: The example of the COVID crisis in Germany," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(2), pages 129-154, May.
    11. Otten, Kasper & Buskens, Vincent & Przepiorka, Wojtek & Ellemers, Naomi, 2021. "Cooperation between newcomers and incumbents: The role of normative disagreements," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

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