Social Norm Uncertainty: Measurement Using Coordination Games and Behavioral Relevance

Abstract

We propose a modified pure coordination game to elicit social norm perception as distributions on the individual level. In addition to receiving point estimations that are equivalent to Krupka and Weber (2013), the dispersion of individual-level norm distributions indicates a subject’s social norm uncertainty. In an experiment involving allocation decisions, we measure and gauge the behavioral relevance of norm uncertainty. We find that subjects exhibit considerable uncertainty regarding both injunctive and descriptive social norms. Moreover, norm uncertainty significantly negatively moderates the effect of point estimations on revealed social preferences. Finally, the more confident subjects are about their own norm perception, the more they disagree on the population level. The results indicate that uncertainty is a distinct and behaviorally relevant dimension of norm perception and suggest that it reduces norm compliance. We conclude that eliciting norms as distributions helps increase the explanatory power of social norms, both on the individual and the population levels.

Keywords: social norms, uncertainty, disagreement, polarization, coordination, methodology

JEL Classification: B41, C78, C91, D81