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The resilience of rule compliance in a polarized society

Author

Listed:
  • Dominik Suri

    (University of Bonn)

  • Simon Gaechter

    (University of Nottingham)

  • Sebastian Kube

    (University of Bonn)

  • Johannes Schultz

    (University of Bonn)

Abstract

Democratic societies depend on citizens following rules even when those rules are set by political opponents. Rising polarization may threaten this behavior. We test the impact of polarization on rule compliance in the United States across three pre-registered waves (May and November 2024; April 2025; n = 8,340) using the “coins task”, which is a non-political, generic rule-following task, where breaking the rule increases payoffs. Participants were randomly assigned to follow rules set by the experimenter, a political co-partisan, a political opponent, or a non-partisan US citizen. Rule compliance ranged from 52.3% to 57.8%, and equivalence testing indicates no meaningful differences across waves or partisan rule-setter identities. However, greater affective distance from partisan rule setters is associated with lower compliance and weaker descriptive and normative beliefs about rule-following. These findings suggest that rule compliance is resilient to the rule-setter’s identity. While affective polarization may erode this behavior somewhat, substantial compliance remains: the human tendency to follow rules, even when incentivized to break them, survives the “stress test” of partisan rule-setting in highly polarized times.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominik Suri & Simon Gaechter & Sebastian Kube & Johannes Schultz, 2026. "The resilience of rule compliance in a polarized society," Discussion Papers 2026-01, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcdx:2026-01
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