Excuse My Behavior: Social Norms and Moral Costs

Last registered on January 27, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Excuse My Behavior: Social Norms and Moral Costs
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015264
Initial registration date
January 27, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 27, 2025, 10:25 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Matthias Holzmann
Affiliation
KU Eichstaett-Ingolstadt
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Alexander M. Danzer
PI Affiliation
KU Eichstaett-Ingolstadt
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-01-27
End date
2025-12-31
Keywords
Behavior, Environment & Energy
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
D01, D91, H23
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Excuses are common to ex-post justify socially irresponsible behaviors. But can excusableness shape economically relevant behaviors? This project studies the effect of excusableness on consumption choices that involve a trade-off between personal benefits and social costs (externalities). Participants in our between-subject survey experiment face hypothetical, incentivized consumption choices where they trade off private monetary gains and carbon emissions. We aim to disentangle the consequences of replacement excuses (RE), when own behavior can be defended with others’ replacement behavior in case of relinquishment, and of waste excuses (WE), when forgoing own consumption may lead to resource waste. To study potential mechanisms we plan to elicit prescriptive and descriptive norms as well as moral costs.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Danzer, Alexander M. and Matthias Holzmann. 2025. "Excuse My Behavior: Social Norms and Moral Costs." AEA RCT Registry. January 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15264-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
In a survey experiment, participants face three hypothetical but incentivized consumption decisions. We provide them with different excuse statements justifying selfish behavior.
Intervention Start Date
2025-01-27
Intervention End Date
2025-02-21

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Consumption choices in three domains: Travel, food consumption, and clothing.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
For details see PAP

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Norms: Beliefs about consumption choices of others and ranking of social appropriateness. Moral costs: Measured by multiple price lists
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
For details see PAP

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We run a survey experiment with four experimental groups and randomly assign participants to the "control group", "objective information", "replacement excuse (RE)" and "waste excuse (WE)".

In RE individuals receive a statement to excuse selfish behavior by stressing that others might consume instead of themselves. In the WE individuals receive statements to excuse selfish behavior by stressing that others might not consume. Since these excuses provide interpretations of objective information, our experimental design includes one treatment that presents only objective information, but no excuses. This objective information could be either interpreted in favor of the waste or the replacement excuse. Participants in RE and WE receive excuse statements and objective information. The control group neither receives excuses nor additional objective information.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Survey programming software Qualtrics
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2400
Sample size: planned number of observations
2400
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
600 per treatment (planned)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics committee KU Eichstaett-Ingolstadt
IRB Approval Date
2024-07-27
IRB Approval Number
183-2024
Analysis Plan

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