Seminar

The effect of nudging personal and injunctive norms in the trade-off between objective equality and efficiency

Valerio Capraro (Middlesex University London)

October 15, 2020, 11:00–12:30

Room Zoom

Abstract

We report three pre-registered studies (total N=1,799) exploring the effect of nudging personal and injunctive norms in decisions that involve a trade-off between objective equality and efficiency. The first two studies provide evidence that: (i) nudging the personal norm has a similar effect as nudging the injunctive norm; (ii) when both norms are nudged in the same direction, there is no additive effect; (iii) when the personal norm and the injunctive norm are nudged in opposite directions, some people tend to follow the personal norm while others tend to follow the injunctive norm. Study 3 tests whether these two classes of people, those who tend to follow the injunctive norm and those who tend to follow the personal norm, map onto the two sub-dimensions of Aquino and Reed’s moral identity scale. We find partial evidence of this hypothesis: people higher in the symbolisation dimension are weakly more likely to follow the injunctive norm; however, we do not find any evidence that people higher in the internalisation dimension are more likely to follow the personal norm.

Reference

Valerio Capraro (Middlesex University London), The effect of nudging personal and injunctive norms in the trade-off between objective equality and efficiency, Behavior, Institutions, and Development Seminar, October 15, 2020, 11:00–12:30, room Zoom.