Social and Moral Norms in the Laboratory

Social norms involve observation by others and external sanctions for violations, while moral norms involve introspection and internal sanctions. We develop a simple model of individual preferences that incorporates moral and social norms. We then examine dictator choices, where we create a shared understanding by providing advice from peers with no financial payoff at stake. We vary whether advice is given, as well as whether choices are made public. This design allows us to explicitly separate the effects of moral and social norms. We find that choices are in fact affected by a combination of observability and the shared understanding. * CREED, Amsterdam School of Economics, Roetersstraat 11, 1018 WB Amsterdam. Email: [email protected]. + Department of Economics, University of California at Santa Barbara, 2127 North Hall, Santa Barbara, California, 93106-9210. Email: [email protected]. Acknowledgments The authors are grateful to Jordi Brandts for stimulating discussions at the early stages of this project. We thank James Konow, Erin Krupka, Ernesto Reuben and participants at the 2010 ESA world meetings in Copenhagen, the seminar series of the Utrecht School of Economics and the Thurgau Experimental Economics Meetings 2011 for useful suggestions.