IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/twi/respas/0122.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incentives for Conformity and Anticonformity

Author

Listed:
  • Fabian Dvorak
  • Urs Fischbacher
  • Katrin Schmelz

Abstract

We study how social evaluation affects conformity and anticonformity in theory and in an experiment. In theory, we show that negative social evaluation, i.e., potential punishment, creates incentives for conformity. Positive social evaluation, i.e., potential reward, creates incentives for anticonformity. In a laboratory experiment, we investigate the effect of these incentives in three domains: judgments in the knowledge domain, subjective arts preferences, and decisions in a creativity-related task. We rely on a new design in which we compare choices under social influence with predictions based on choices without social influence using transitivity. The experimental results confirm the theoretical predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabian Dvorak & Urs Fischbacher & Katrin Schmelz, 2020. "Incentives for Conformity and Anticonformity," TWI Research Paper Series 122, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    • Handle: RePEc:twi:respas:0122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.twi-kreuzlingen.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/twi-rps-122-dvorak-fischbacher-schmelz.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. Douglas Bernheim & Christine L. Exley, 2015. "Understanding Conformity: An Experimental Investigation," Harvard Business School Working Papers 16-070, Harvard Business School.
    2. James G. March, 1991. "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 71-87, February.
    3. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    4. Patryk Siedlecki & Janusz Szwabiński & Tomasz Weron, 2016. "The Interplay Between Conformity and Anticonformity and its Polarizing Effect on Society," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 19(4), pages 1-9.
    5. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "Anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity: Evidence from voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1047-1060, June.
    6. Becker, Gary S., 1971. "The Economics of Discrimination," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226041162, September.
    7. Corazzini, Luca & Greiner, Ben, 2007. "Herding, social preferences and (non-)conformity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 74-80, October.
    8. P. A. Riach & J. Rich, 2002. "Field Experiments of Discrimination in the Market Place," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(483), pages 480-518, November.
    9. Ariely, Dan & Levav, Jonathan, 2000. "Sequential Choice in Group Settings: Taking the Road Less Traveled and Less Enjoyed," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 27(3), pages 279-290, December.
    10. Donna Bobek & Robin Roberts & John Sweeney, 2007. "The Social Norms of Tax Compliance: Evidence from Australia, Singapore, and the United States," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 49-64, August.
    11. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    12. Ariel Rubinstein, 2013. "10 Q&A: Experienced Advice for “Lost” Graduate Students in Economics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 193-196, September.
    13. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1082-1095, October.
    14. Banerjee, Abhijit & Fudenberg, Drew, 2004. "Word-of-mouth learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, January.
    15. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1994. "A Theory of Conformity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 841-877, October.
    16. Armin Falk & Florian Zimmermann, 2017. "Consistency as a Signal of Skills," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2197-2210, July.
    17. Vives, Xavier, 1997. "Learning from Others: A Welfare Analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-200, August.
    18. Antonia Grohmann & Sahra Sakha, 2015. "The Effect of Peer Observation on Consumption Choices: Experimental Evidence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1525, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Daniel Jones & Sera Linardi, 2014. "Wallflowers: Experimental Evidence of an Aversion to Standing Out," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1757-1771, July.
    20. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    21. Huck, Steffen & Oechssler, Jorg, 2000. "Informational cascades in the laboratory: Do they occur for the right reasons?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 661-671, December.
    22. Coleman, Stephen, 2007. "The Minnesota Income Tax Compliance Experiment: Replication of the Social Norms Experiment," MPRA Paper 5820, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Robin, Stéphane & Rusinowska, Agnieszka & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2014. "Ingratiation: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 16-38.
    24. Sarah Smith & Frank Windmeijer & Edmund Wright, 2015. "Peer Effects in Charitable Giving: Evidence from the (Running) Field," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(585), pages 1053-1071, June.
    25. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2004. "Social norms and human cooperation," Macroeconomics 0409026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    26. Fatas, Enrique & Hargreaves Heap, Shaun P. & Rojo Arjona, David, 2018. "Preference conformism: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 71-82.
    27. Jacob K. Goeree & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Conformity in the lab," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 15-28, July.
    28. Hunt Allcott & Todd Rogers, 2014. "The Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Behavioral Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Energy Conservation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3003-3037, October.
    29. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1082-1095.
    30. Guzmán, Ricardo Andrés & Rodríguez-Sickert, Carlos & Rowthorn, Robert, 2006. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do: the coevolution of altruistic punishment, conformist learning, and cooperation," MPRA Paper 2037, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    31. Shalley, Christina E. & Perry-Smith, Jill E., 2001. "Effects of Social-Psychological Factors on Creative Performance: The Role of Informational and Controlling Expected Evaluation and Modeling Experience," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-22, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kölle, Felix & Quercia, Simone, 2021. "The influence of empirical and normative expectations on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 691-703.
    2. Timo Goeschl & Sara Elisa Kettner & Johannes Lohse & Christiane Schwieren, 2018. "From Social Information to Social Norms: Evidence from Two Experiments on Donation Behaviour," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-25, November.
    3. D'Adda, Giovanna & Drouvelis, Michalis & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2016. "Norm elicitation in within-subject designs: Testing for order effects," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-7.
    4. Dimant, Eugen, 2019. "Contagion of pro- and anti-social behavior among peers and the role of social proximity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 66-88.
    5. Fortuna Casoria & Ernesto Reuben & Christina Rott, 2022. "The Effect of Group Identity on Hiring Decisions with Incomplete Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 6336-6345, August.
    6. Heinicke, Franziska & König-Kersting, Christian & Schmidt, Robert, 2022. "Injunctive vs. descriptive social norms and reference group dependence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 199-218.
    7. Kandul, Serhiy & Lanz, Bruno, 2021. "Public good provision, in-group cooperation and out-group descriptive norms: A lab experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    8. Pinar Yildirim & Yanhao Wei & Christophe Bulte & Joy Lu, 2020. "Social network design for inducing effort," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 381-417, December.
    9. Barr, Abigail & Lane, Tom & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2018. "On the social inappropriateness of discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 153-164.
    10. d'Adda, Giovanna & Dufwenberg, Martin & Passarelli, Francesco & Tabellini, Guido, 2020. "Social norms with private values: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 288-304.
    11. March, Christoph & Ziegelmeyer, Anthony, 2020. "Altruistic observational learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    12. Mitra, Arnab & Shahriar, Quazi, 2020. "Why is dishonesty difficult to mitigate? The interaction between descriptive norm and monetary incentive," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. John A. List & James J. Murphy & Michael K. Price & Alexander G. James, 2019. "Do Appeals to Donor Benefits Raise More Money than Appeals to Recipient Benefits? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment with Pick.Click.Give," NBER Working Papers 26559, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Van Parys, Jessica & Ash, Elliott, 2018. "Sequential decision-making with group identity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1-18.
    15. Christiane Reif & Dirk Rübbelke & Andreas Löschel, 2017. "Improving Voluntary Public Good Provision Through a Non-governmental, Endogenous Matching Mechanism: Experimental Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 559-589, July.
    16. Ambler, Kate & Godlonton, Susan & Recalde, María P., 2021. "Follow the leader? A field experiment on social influence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1280-1297.
    17. Peter Katuščák & Tomáš Miklánek, 2023. "What drives conditional cooperation in public good games?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(2), pages 435-467, April.
    18. Feine, Gregor & Groh, Elke D. & von Loessl, Victor & Wetzel, Heike, 2023. "The double dividend of social information in charitable giving: Evidence from a framed field experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    19. Chen, Jingnan (Cecilia) & Fonseca, Miguel A. & Grimshaw, Shaun B., 2021. "When a nudge is (not) enough: Experiments on social information and incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    20. Danilov, Anastasia & Khalmetski, Kiryl & Sliwka, Dirk, 2021. "Descriptive Norms and Guilt Aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 293-311.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    conformity; creativity; social learning; institutions;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:twi:respas:0122. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Urs Fischbacher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/twikrch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.