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Enforcing bad norms - datasets from two experiments
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modified on 2016-11-17, 06:47 These datasets derive from two experiments. The associated paper, detailing the experimental procedures, is not yet published.
Abstract:
Social norms are an important element in
explaining how humans achieve very high levels of cooperative activity. It is
widely observed that, when norms can be enforced by peer punishment, groups are
able to resolve social dilemmas in prosocial, cooperative ways. Little effort
has been made, however, to investigate the potential of punishment to promote
anti-social effects of social norms. In this paper we show that punishment can
easily encourage participation in destructive behaviours that are harmful to
group welfare, and that this phenomenon is mediated by a social norm. In a
variation of a public goods game, in which the return to investment is negative
for both group and individual, we find that the opportunity to punish led to
higher levels of contribution, thereby harming collective payoffs. A second
experiment confirmed that, independently of whether punishment is available, a
majority of subjects regard the efficient behaviour of non-contribution as
socially inappropriate. The results show that simply providing a punishment
opportunity does not guarantee that punishment will be used for socially
beneficial ends, because the social norms that influence punishment behaviour
may themselves be destructive.
