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Category: Project

Description: Decades of research has shown that people often deviate from their self-interests to comply with social norms, especially when exposed to others' scrutiny. While economic incentives help increase norm compliance, even in settings where punishment or rewards are absent, people care about others' opinions and beliefs. We propose an explanation for the effect of observability on norm compliance based on belief-based motivations. Drawing on psychological game theory, we present an experimental design to test the effect of guilt aversion and social image concerns on compliance with a 50-50 social norm under observability in a modified version of a Dictator Game.