IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jgu/wpaper/2024.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Determines the Enforcement of Newly Introduced Social Norms: Personality Traits or Economic Preferences? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Schunk

    (Johannes Gutenberg University)

  • Valentin Wagner

    (Johannes Gutenberg University)

Abstract

Social norms govern human behavior and usually change slowly over time. While individuals’ willingness to sanction others is decisive for the enforcement of social norms and thus social stability, little is known about individual sanctioning behavior related to newly introduced social norms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have used various tools to rapidly and actively introduce the new norm of wearing a face mask; this offers a unique setting to study the determinants of individuals’ willingness to enforce a cooperation norm. In a nationwide online survey in Germany, we find that higher levels of conscientiousness and neuroticism, but none of the economic preferences (time and risk), are significantly and robustly associated with higher norm enforcement behavior. Furthermore, there is a strong relationship behavior between supervisors’ and their subordinates’ norm enforcement, and we observe that females sanction less harshly than men. Our results shed light on the origins of individual compliance with and enforcement of newly introduced public policy measures that are meant to increase solidarity via the explicit shaping of new cooperation norms.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Schunk & Valentin Wagner, 2020. "What Determines the Enforcement of Newly Introduced Social Norms: Personality Traits or Economic Preferences? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis," Working Papers 2024, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    • Handle: RePEc:jgu:wpaper:2024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://download.uni-mainz.de/RePEc/pdf/Discussion_Paper_2024.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campos-Mercade, Pol & Meier, Armando N. & Schneider, Florian H. & Wengström, Erik, 2021. "Prosociality predicts health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    2. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4, June.
    3. Catherine Eckel & Rick Wilson, 2007. "Social learning in coordination games: does status matter?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 317-329, September.
    4. H. Peyton Young, 2015. "The Evolution of Social Norms," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 359-387, August.
    5. Huynh, Toan Luu Duc, 2020. "“If You Wear a Mask, Then You Must Know How to Use It and Dispose of It Properly!†: A Survey Study in Vietnam," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 7(2), pages 145-158, May.
    6. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    7. Traxler, Christian & Winter, Joachim, 2012. "Survey evidence on conditional norm enforcement," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 390-398.
    8. Fred D. Davis & Richard P. Bagozzi & Paul R. Warshaw, 1989. "User Acceptance of Computer Technology: A Comparison of Two Theoretical Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(8), pages 982-1003, August.
    9. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2023. "The Preference Survey Module: A Validated Instrument for Measuring Risk, Time, and Social Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 1935-1950, April.
    10. Müller, Stephan & Rau, Holger A., 2020. "Economic preferences and compliance in the social stress test of the Corona crisis," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 391, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    11. Roberto Galbiati & Emeric Henry & Nicolas Jacquemet & Max Lobeck, 2021. "How laws affect the perception of norms: Empirical evidence from the lockdown," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-14, September.
    12. Almlund, Mathilde & Duckworth, Angela Lee & Heckman, James & Kautz, Tim, 2011. "Personality Psychology and Economics," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-181, Elsevier.
    13. Jason Shachat & Matthew J. Walker & Lijia Wei, 2020. "The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Economic Behaviours and Preferences: Experimental Evidence from Wuhan," Working Papers 20-33, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    14. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Tom Lane & Daniele Nosenzo & Silvia Sonderegger, 2023. "Law and Norms: Empirical Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(5), pages 1255-1293, May.
    16. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Matthew O. Jackson, 2015. "History, Expectations, and Leadership in the Evolution of Social Norms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 423-456.
    18. Xiao, Erte & Houser, Daniel, 2011. "Punish in public," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 1006-1017.
    19. Balafoutas, Loukas & Nikiforakis, Nikos, 2012. "Norm enforcement in the city: A natural field experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1773-1785.
    20. Casoria, Fortuna & Galeotti, Fabio & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2021. "Perceived social norm and behavior quickly adjusted to legal changes during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 54-65.
    21. Tim Friehe & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch, 2018. "Predicting norm enforcement: the individual and joint predictive power of economic preferences, personality, and self-control," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 127-146, February.
    22. Dal Bó, Ernesto & Dal Bó, Pedro, 2014. "“Do the right thing:” The effects of moral suasion on cooperation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 28-38.
    23. Catherine C. Eckel & Enrique Fatas & Rick Wilson, 2010. "Cooperation and Status in Organizations," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(4), pages 737-762, August.
    24. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    25. Neupane, Tank Prasad, 2020. "Is Individualism Fatal in Pandemic?," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 7(3), pages 207-222, August.
    26. Bicchieri,Cristina, 2006. "The Grammar of Society," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521574907.
    27. Rege, Mari & Telle, Kjetil, 2004. "The impact of social approval and framing on cooperation in public good situations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1625-1644, July.
    28. Khasawneh, Odai Y., 2018. "Technophobia: Examining its hidden factors and defining it," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 93-100.
    29. Cagri S. Kumru & Lise Vesterlund, 2010. "The Effect of Status on Charitable Giving," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(4), pages 709-735, August.
    30. Roberto Galbiati & Emeric Henry & Nicolas Jacquemet & Max Lobeck, 2021. "How laws affect the perception of norms: Empirical evidence from the lockdown," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-14, September.
    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. Schunk, Daniel & Wagner, Valentin, 2021. "What determines the willingness to sanction violations of newly introduced social norms: Personality traits or economic preferences? evidence from the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Tim Friehe & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch, 2018. "Predicting norm enforcement: the individual and joint predictive power of economic preferences, personality, and self-control," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 127-146, February.
    3. Müller, Stephan & Rau, Holger A., 2021. "Economic preferences and compliance in the social stress test of the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    4. Fang, Ximeng & Freyer, Timo & Ho, Chui-Yee & Chen, Zihua & Goette, Lorenz, 2022. "Prosociality predicts individual behavior and collective outcomes in the COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    5. Preuss, Malte, 2021. "Intra-individual stability of two survey measures on forward-looking attitude," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 201-227.
    6. Luise Görges & Tom Lane & Daniele Nosenzo & Silvia Sonderegger, 2023. "Equal before the (expressive power of) law?," Working Paper Series in Economics 423, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    7. Katharina Werner, 2019. "The Role of Information for Public Preferences on Education – Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 82.
    8. Tim Friehe & Markus Pannenberg, 2020. "Time preferences and political regimes: evidence from reunified Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 349-387, January.
    9. Ketki Sheth & Greg C. Wright, 2020. "The usual suspects: do risk tolerance, altruism, and health predict the response to COVID-19?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 1041-1052, December.
    10. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Dahmann, Sarah Christina & Kamhöfer, Daniel A. & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah, 2019. "Self-control: Determinants, life outcomes and intergenerational implications," DICE Discussion Papers 319, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    11. Andreas Ziegler, 2020. "New Ecological Paradigm meets behavioral economics: On the relationship between environmental values and economic preferences," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202020, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    12. Bühler, Dorothee & Sharma, Rasadhika & Stein, Wiebke, 2020. "Occupational Attainment and Earnings in Southeast Asia: The Role of Non-cognitive Skills," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    13. Philipp Lergetporer & Katharina Werner & Ludger Woessmann, 2021. "Does Ignorance of Economic Returns and Costs Explain the Educational Aspiration Gap? Representative Evidence from Adults and Adolescents," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(351), pages 624-670, July.
    14. Breitkopf, Laura & Chowdhury, Shyamal K. & Priyam, Shambhavi & Schildberg-Hörisch, Hannah & Sutter, Matthias, 2020. "Do economic preferences of children predict behavior?," DICE Discussion Papers 342, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    15. Hanushek, Eric A. & Kinne, Lavinia & Lergetporer, Philipp & Woessmann, Ludger, 2020. "Culture and Student Achievement: The Intertwined Roles of Patience and Risk-Taking," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 249, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    16. Castillo, Jose Gabriel & Hernandez, Manuel A., 2023. "The unintended consequences of confinement: Evidence from the rural area in Guatemala," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    17. Philipp Lergetporer & Katharina Werner & Ludger Woessmann, 2018. "Does Ignorance of Economic Returns and Costs Explain the Educational Aspiration Gap? Evidence from Representative Survey Experiments," CESifo Working Paper Series 7000, CESifo.
    18. Dietmar Fehr & Yannick Reichlin, 2021. "Status, Control Beliefs, and Risk-Taking," CESifo Working Paper Series 9253, CESifo.
    19. James J. Heckman & Tomáš Jagelka & Timothy D. Kautz, 2019. "Some Contributions of Economics to the Study of Personality," NBER Working Papers 26459, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Ziegler, Andreas, 2021. "New Ecological Paradigm meets behavioral economics: On the relationship between environmental values and economic preferences," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social norm enforcement; personality traits; risk and time preferences; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General

    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:jgu:wpaper:2024. 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: Research Unit IPP (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vlmaide.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.