Determinants of Norm Compliance: Moral Similarity and Group Identification

We randomly assign participants to one of two treatment conditions. In each treatment, we introduce the participants to the moral position of a different social group. Through this treatment variation, we exogenously alter the moral similarity between our subjects and the social group (high or low moral similarity) and, consequently, the group identification towards the social group.

A full description of the experimental design can be found in our pre-analysis plan.

2020-03-17

2020-03-20

Norm compliance (the number of balls in the blue bucket of the modified rule-following task in the Behavioral Experiment).

Group identification (the rating of the "Inclusion of Ingroup in the Self Scale" in the Behavioral Experiment).

In our confirmatory analysis, we utilize the distance measure of this scale rather than the overlap measure.

The research project includes two surveys and two experiments:

The Pre-Screening Survey: In this survey, participants answer the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2011). Based on their responses, we calculate the progressivism index (Clark et al., 2017).

The Rule Elicitation Survey (before the registration): We re-invited ten individuals with a positive progressivism index and ten individuals with a negative progressivism index. In the survey, we asked for a description of the rule from the rule-following task (Kimbrough & Vostroknutov, 2018). Their choices were the "The rule is to put the balls in the blue bucket" or "The rule is to put the balls in the yellow bucket". We used those answers to construct our treatment variation (two social groups that have a distinct moral positions but prescribe the same behavior in the rule-following task).

The Behavioral Experiment: We re-invite participants with a positive progressivism index. In this experiment, we introduce participants to the moral position of either social group, ask for a rating in a continuous version of the "Inclusion of Ingroup in the Self Scale" (Tropp & Wright, 2001) and let them play a modified version of the rule-following task. In this modified version, the rule "The rule is to put the balls in the blue bucket" is replaced by the rule "According to the members of Group A, the rule is to put the balls in the blue bucket".

The Norm Elicitation Experiment: We re-invite participants with a positive progressivism index. In this experiment, we introduce participants to the moral position of either social group and elicit the group norms of individuals with positive progressivism in either treatment of the Behavioral Experiment. Hereby, we utilize the method of Krupka & Weber (2013).

A full description of the experimental design can be found in our pre-analysis plan.

When subjects participate in either the Behavioral or Norm Elicitation Experiment, the experimental server randomly assigns them to either treatment. To achieve this, we use the Python module NumPy.

Individual level

No

Behavioral Experiment: 2 treatments with 160 participants each.
Norm Elicitation Experiment: 2 treatments with 100 participants each.

Behavioral Experiment: 2 treatments with 160 participants each. Norm Elicitation Experiment: 2 treatments with 100 participants each.

Behavioral Experiment: 2 treatments with 160 participants each.
Norm Elicitation Experiment: 2 treatments with 100 participants each.

The sample size in the Behavioral Experiment is based on the following power calculation: We used data from Kimbrough & Vostroknutov (2018) to calculate an expected effect size of 0.3. Subsequently, we used G-Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007) to calculate the minimal required sample size for a one-tailed Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test with a parent distribution min ARE, an effect size of 0.3, an alpha-error probability of 0.05, a power of 0.80 and an even allocation between treatments. Based on this power calculation, we require at least 160 subjects per treatment.

Group Identity Project: Pre-Analysis Plan

What determines whether someone complies with a social norm? The social identity approach offers a mechanism for norm compliance: a person who feels similar to a group identifies more with that group and, in turn, complies with the group's norms. We used an economics experiment to test this mechanism. We manipulated the similarity between an individual and a social group by exogenously changing their similarity in moral values. Moral values were identified using a survey developed in conjunction with moral foundations theory. In one treatment, the subject and social group's moral values were similar, and in another, they were dissimilar. Subsequently, we measured group identification and behavior. To measure behavior, we used a modified rule-following task in which the social group expressed a normative expectation that subjects follow "the rule". We found that moral similarity increased group identification, and group identification increased rule compliance. We show that this behavior change was due to increased group norm sensitivity rather than changes in the group norms. We advance the study of social identity by establishing a causal pathway between group identification and behavior change.

Schneeberger, Alexander and Krupka, Erin L., Determinants of Norm Compliance: Moral Similarity and Group Identification (November 22, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3969227

https://ssrn.com/abstract=3969227