Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
情境模糊诱发机会主义违规并侵蚀社会规范
Situational ambiguity induces opportunistic rule breaking and erodes social norms
摘要
Rules are central to social order, but violations can rapidly spread when compliance is costly to individuals. Here we study rule-following under situational ambiguity, where the applicability of rules is open to interpretation. It is currently unclear how such ambiguity shapes rule compliance and the sway of social influence. We present incentivized experiments (total n = 3226 American Prolific workers) showing that situational ambiguity substantially reduces rule compliance. Observing rule bending or a rule violation reduces compliance, whereas observing compliance does not increase it. The combined effect of situational ambiguity and observing a rule violation is as strong as the effect of either factor on its own, suggesting that many people comply unless an opportunity arises for rule violations that increase their monetary payoffs. Further experiments suggest that these results are partly driven by weakened social norms: situational ambiguity reduces disapproval of rule bending, and observing non-compliance increases expectations that others will violate the rule.
中文摘要
规则是社会秩序的核心，但当遵守规则对个人而言代价高昂时，违规行为可能迅速蔓延。本文研究情境模糊性下的规则遵循，即规则的适用性存在解释空间。目前尚不清楚这种模糊性如何影响规则遵守以及社会影响的作用。我们呈现了激励实验（总样本 n = 3226 名美国 Prolific 工作者），表明情境模糊性大幅降低规则遵守。观察到规则变通或规则违规会降低遵守，而观察到遵守行为并不会提高遵守。情境模糊性与观察到规则违规的联合效应与任一因素单独的效应一样强，这表明许多人会遵守规则，除非出现可增加其金钱收益的违规机会。进一步实验表明，这些结果部分由社会规范弱化驱动：情境模糊性降低了对规则变通的不认可，而观察到不遵守行为则提高了对他人将违规的预期。