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Game-Theoretic Accounts of Social Norms. The Role of Normative Expectations

Author

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  • Cristina Bicchieri
  • Alessandro Sontuoso

    (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

This is a draft of a chapter in a planned book on behavioral game theory. Social norms and social preferences have increasingly become an integral part of the economics discourse. After disentangling the two notions, this paper focuses on social norms, which we stipulate as group-specific solutions to strategic problems. More precisely, we define social norms as behavioral regularities emerging in mixed-motive games, as a result of preferences for conformity conditional on an endogenous set of beliefs and expectations. To that end, we review models that explicitly feature normative expectations, as well as models that account for category-specific prescriptions. We finally survey some relevant experimental evidence.

Suggested Citation

  • Cristina Bicchieri & Alessandro Sontuoso, 2017. "Game-Theoretic Accounts of Social Norms. The Role of Normative Expectations," PPE Working Papers 0011, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    • Handle: RePEc:ppc:wpaper:0011
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Aycinena, Diego & Bogliacino, Francesco & Kimbrough, Erik O., 2024. "Measuring norms: Assessing the threat of social desirability bias to the Bicchieri and Xiao elicitation method," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 225-239.
    2. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social norms; social preferences; social dilemmas;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

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