The Effect of Nudging Personal and Injunctive Norms on the Trade-Off Between Objective Equality and Efficiency

28 Pages Posted: 20 Nov 2020

See all articles by Steven Human

Steven Human

Middlesex University London

Valerio Capraro

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca - Department of Psychology

Date Written: October 2, 2020

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 to nudging the injunctive norm; (ii) when both norms are nudged towards the same direction, there is no additive effect; (iii) when the personal norm and the injunctive norm are nudged towards 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 symbolization dimension are weakly more likely to follow the injunctive norm; however, we do not find any evidence that people higher in the internalization dimension are more likely to follow the personal norm.

Keywords: norm-based interventions, personal norm, injunctive norm, equality-efficiency trade-off, moral identity

JEL Classification: C70, C71, C72, C78, C79, C91, D01, D03, D63

Suggested Citation

Human, Steven and Capraro, Valerio, The Effect of Nudging Personal and Injunctive Norms on the Trade-Off Between Objective Equality and Efficiency (October 2, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3703684 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3703684

Steven Human

Middlesex University London ( email )

, The Burroughs, Hendon, London, United Kingdom
London, NW4 4BT
United Kingdom

Valerio Capraro (Contact Author)

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca - Department of Psychology ( email )

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