IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/rlecon/v4y2008i1n6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Norms, Self-Interest and Ambiguity of Legal Norms: An Experimental Analysis of the Rule vs. Standard Dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • Feldman Yuval

    (Bar-Ilan University; Hebrew University)

  • Harel Alon

    (Bar-Ilan University; Hebrew University)

Abstract

The influence of social norms on the willingness to obey legal norms depends on contingencies that have not been investigated. Theoretical, behavioral, and experimental considerations investigated in this paper establish the differential behavioral effects of legal rules and standards. The findings of experiments conducted by us indicate that in the absence of information concerning social norms, rules and standards have similar effects on compliance. In contrast, rules and standards have differential effects on compliance when they interact with social norms. Furthermore, it was found that social norms of noncompliance had a much greater effect than social norms of compliance. A second study demonstrated a similar relationship between self-interest and legal ambiguity, corroborating the theoretical mechanisms we have argued for, based on the findings of the first study. The implications of these findings to legal policy-making are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Feldman Yuval & Harel Alon, 2008. "Social Norms, Self-Interest and Ambiguity of Legal Norms: An Experimental Analysis of the Rule vs. Standard Dilemma," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 81-126, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:4:y:2008:i:1:n:6
    DOI: 10.2202/1555-5879.1205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1555-5879.1205
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1555-5879.1205?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berenike Waubert de Puiseau & Andreas Glöckner & Emanuel V. Towfigh, 2019. "Integrating theories of law obedience: How utility-theoretic factors, legitimacy, and lack of self-control influence decisions to commit low-level crimes," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(3), pages 318-334, May.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:3:p:318-334 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Christoph Engel & Klaus Heine, 2017. "The dark side of price cap regulation: a laboratory experiment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 217-240, October.
    4. Mulder, Laetitia B. & Rink, Floor & Jordan, Jennifer, 2020. "Constraining temptation: How specific and general rules mitigate the effect of personal gain on unethical behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    5. Mulder, Laetitia B. & Jordan, Jennifer & Rink, Floor, 2015. "The effect of specific and general rules on ethical decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 115-129.

    More about this item

    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:bpj:rlecon:v:4:y:2008:i:1:n:6. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    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.