IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v129y2015icp59-69.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bidirectional associations between descriptive and injunctive norms

Author

Listed:
  • Eriksson, Kimmo
  • Strimling, Pontus
  • Coultas, Julie C.

Abstract

Modern research on social norms makes an important distinction between descriptive norms (how people commonly behave) and injunctive norms (what one is morally obligated to do). Here we propose that this distinction is far from clear in the cognition of social norms. In a first study, using the implicit association test, the concepts of “common” and “moral” were found to be strongly associated. Some implications of this automatic common–moral association were investigated in a subsequent series of experiments: Our participants tended to make explicit inferences from descriptive norms to injunctive norms and vice versa; they tended to mix up descriptive and injunctive concepts in recall tasks; and frequency information influenced participants’ own moral judgments. We conclude by discussing how the common–moral association could play a role in the dynamics of social norms.

Suggested Citation

  • Eriksson, Kimmo & Strimling, Pontus & Coultas, Julie C., 2015. "Bidirectional associations between descriptive and injunctive norms," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 59-69.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:129:y:2015:i:c:p:59-69
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.09.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597814000764
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.09.011?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paolacci, Gabriele & Chandler, Jesse & Ipeirotis, Panagiotis G., 2010. "Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(5), pages 411-419, August.
    2. Gabriele Paolacci & Jesse Chandler & Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis, 2010. "Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 5(5), pages 411-419, August.
    3. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:5:p:411-419 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Morris, Michael W. & Hong, Ying-yi & Chiu, Chi-yue & Liu, Zhi, 2015. "Normology: Integrating insights about social norms to understand cultural dynamics," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1-13.
    2. Dimant, Eugen & van Kleef, Gerben A. & Shalvi, Shaul, 2020. "Requiem for a Nudge: Framing effects in nudging honesty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 247-266.
    3. Bicchieri, Cristina & Dimant, Eugen & Xiao, Erte, 2021. "Deviant or wrong? The effects of norm information on the efficacy of punishment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 209-235.
    4. Davina Vora & Lee Martin & Stacey R. Fitzsimmons & Andre A. Pekerti & C. Lakshman & Salma Raheem, 2019. "Multiculturalism within individuals: A review, critique, and agenda for future research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(4), pages 499-524, June.
    5. Laura Witzling & Bret Shaw & David Trechter, 2019. "Which communication channels shape normative perceptions about buying local food? An application of social exposure," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(3), pages 443-454, September.
    6. Chui, Celia & Kouchaki, Maryam & Gino, Francesca, 2021. "“Many others are doing it, so why shouldn't I?”: How being in larger competitions leads to more cheating," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 102-115.
    7. Hopkins, Debbie & Stephenson, Janet, 2016. "The replication and reduction of automobility: Findings from Aotearoa New Zealand," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 92-101.
    8. Campbell Pryor & Amy Perfors & Piers D L Howe, 2019. "Conformity to the descriptive norms of people with opposing political or social beliefs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, July.
    9. Cristina Bicchieri & Eugen Dimant, 2018. "It's Not A Lie If You Believe It. Lying and Belief Distortion Under Norm-Uncertainty," PPE Working Papers 0012, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:4:p:796-822 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Lynn, Michael, 2021. "The effects of injunctive and descriptive tipping norms on tipping behavior and motives," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    12. Kimmo Eriksson & Irina Vartanova & Petra Ornstein & Pontus Strimling, 2021. "The common-is-moral association is stronger among less religious people," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-8, December.
    13. Lieberman, Alicea & Duke, Kristen E. & Amir, On, 2019. "How incentive framing can harness the power of social norms," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 118-131.
    14. Cristina Bicchieri & Eugen Dimant & Silvia Sonderegger, 2020. "It's Not a Lie If You Believe the Norm Does Not Apply: Conditional Norm-Following with Strategic Beliefs," CESifo Working Paper Series 8059, CESifo.
    15. Toby Handfield & John Thrasher & Andrew Corcoran & Shaun Nichols, 2021. "Asymmetry and symmetry of acts and omissions in punishment, norms, and judged causality," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(4), pages 796-822, July.
    16. Xiong, Chang & Chang, Victor & Scuotto, Veronica & Shi, Yujie & Paoloni, Niccolò, 2021. "The social-psychological approach in understanding knowledge hiding within international R&D teams: An inductive analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 799-811.
    17. Cristina Bicchieri & Eugen Dimant, 2022. "Nudging with care: the risks and benefits of social information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(3), pages 443-464, June.
    18. Burgstaller, Lilith & Pfeil, Katharina, 2024. "You don’t need an invoice, do you? An online experiment on collaborative tax evasion," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    19. Bicchieri, Cristina & Dimant, Eugen & Sonderegger, Silvia, 2023. "It's not a lie if you believe the norm does not apply: Conditional norm-following and belief distortion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 321-354.
    20. Deore, Aishwarrya & Gallani, Susanna & Krishnan, Ranjani, 2023. "The effect of systems of management controls on honesty in managerial reporting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    21. Jennifer A. Loughmiller-Cardinal & James Scott Cardinal, 2023. "The Behavior of Information: A Reconsideration of Social Norms," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-27, April.

    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. Rebecca R Carter & Analisa DiFeo & Kath Bogie & Guo-Qiang Zhang & Jiayang Sun, 2014. "Crowdsourcing Awareness: Exploration of the Ovarian Cancer Knowledge Gap through Amazon Mechanical Turk," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, January.
    2. Yamada, Katsunori & Sato, Masayuki, 2013. "Another avenue for anatomy of income comparisons: Evidence from hypothetical choice experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 35-57.
    3. Sweldens, Steven & Puntoni, Stefano & Paolacci, Gabriele & Vissers, Maarten, 2014. "The bias in the bias: Comparative optimism as a function of event social undesirability," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 229-244.
    4. S. Venus Jin & Aziz Muqaddam, 2019. "Product placement 2.0: “Do Brands Need Influencers, or Do Influencers Need Brands?”," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(5), pages 522-537, September.
    5. Hsu, Dan K. & Burmeister-Lamp, Katrin & Simmons, Sharon A. & Foo, Maw-Der & Hong, Michelle C. & Pipes, Jesse D., 2019. "“I know I can, but I don't fit”: Perceived fit, self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 311-326.
    6. Lutz, Christoph & Newlands, Gemma, 2018. "Consumer segmentation within the sharing economy: The case of Airbnb," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 187-196.
    7. Mariconda, Simone & Lurati, Francesco, 2015. "Does familiarity breed stability? The role of familiarity in moderating the effects of new information on reputation judgments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 957-964.
    8. Gandullia, Luca & Lezzi, Emanuela, 2018. "The price elasticity of charitable giving: New experimental evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 88-91.
    9. Tobias Schlager & Ashley V. Whillans, 2022. "People underestimate the probability of contracting the coronavirus from friends," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    10. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Kuhn, Michael A., 2013. "Experimental methods: Extra-laboratory experiments-extending the reach of experimental economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 93-100.
    11. Gerhard, Patrick & Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Post, Thomas, 2017. "Past performance framing and investors’ belief updating: Is seeing long-term returns always associated with smaller belief updates?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 38-51.
    12. Orazi, Davide C. & Pizzetti, Marta, 2015. "Revisiting fear appeals: A structural re-inquiry of the protection motivation model," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 223-225.
    13. Haas, Nicholas & Hassan, Mazen & Mansour, Sarah & Morton, Rebecca B., 2021. "Polarizing information and support for reform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 883-901.
    14. Cantarella, Michele & Strozzi, Chiara, 2019. "Workers in the Crowd: The Labour Market Impact of the Online Platform Economy," IZA Discussion Papers 12327, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Armenak Antinyan & Luca Corazzini & Filippo Pavesi, 2018. "What Matters for Whistleblowing on Tax Evaders? Survey and Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 07/2018, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    16. Atalay, Kadir & Bakhtiar, Fayzan & Cheung, Stephen & Slonim, Robert, 2014. "Savings and prize-linked savings accounts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 86-106.
    17. Hindsley, Paul & McEvoy, David M. & Morgan, O. Ashton, 2020. "Consumer Demand for Ethical Products and the Role of Cultural Worldviews: The Case of Direct-Trade Coffee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    18. Gökçe Esenduran & James A. Hill & In Joon Noh, 2020. "Understanding the Choice of Online Resale Channel for Used Electronics," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(5), pages 1188-1211, May.
    19. Capraro, Valerio & Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael & Ruiz-Martos, Maria J., 2020. "Preferences for efficiency, rather than preferences for morality, drive cooperation in the one-shot Stag-Hunt game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    20. Azzam, Tarek & Harman, Elena, 2016. "Crowdsourcing for quantifying transcripts: An exploratory study," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 63-73.

    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:eee:jobhdp:v:129:y:2015:i:c:p:59-69. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    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.