Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Egocentric Norm Adoption
Author-Name: Thomas Neuber 
Author-Email: thomas.neuber@uni-bonn.de 


Classification-JEL: C91, D63, D91
Keywords: egocentrism, experiment, social norms

Abstract: Social norms pervade human interaction, but their demands are often in conflict. To
understand behavior, it is thus crucial to know how individuals resolve normative
tradeoffs. This paper proposes that sincere judgments about the relative importance
of conflicting norms are shaped by personal interest. We show that people
tend to follow norms from which they benefit themselves, even in contexts where
their own decisions only affect others. In a (virtual) laboratory experiment, each
subject makes two decisions over allocations of points within a group of two other
participants. The sets of possible allocations entail different normative tradeoffs,
and subjects have no personal stakes in their own decisions. However, they are
affected by others’ decisions: each subject is part of a group, and the members of
different groups simultaneously decide over others’ allocations along a circle. We
find that subjects’ decisions are biased towards the normative principles aligned
with their own interests, thereby favoring other players whenever these share those
interests. Subjects’ beliefs about the choices made by others suggest a largely unconscious
mechanism. Moreover, survey answers indicate that the effects are driven
by self-centered reasoning: subjects who report pronounced perspective-taking are
less biased.

Note: 
Length: 59
Creation-Date: 2021-12
Revision-Date: 
File-URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp323
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:CRCTR224_2021_323