Observing Descriptive Social Norm and Conformity: Experimental Evidence

Abstract

People often conform to others either pro-socially or self-interestedly. This study investigates how observing others' behaviors influences individuals' behaviors. Specifically, by conducting modified dictator game experiments where subjects observe others' behaviors, we measure subjects' conforming/non-conforming and pro-social/self-interested behavioral changes and examine factors that influence such behavioral changes. The main results are as follows: (1) self-interested conformity was most frequently observed, followed by pro-social conformity, self-interested non-conformity, and pro-social non-conformity; (2) observational learning induces both pro-social conformity and self-interested conformity; and (3) observational learning enhances the degree of self-interested conformity, but not pro-social conformity. These results suggest that a subject's utility increases with one's payoff and decreases with non-conformimg to the descriptive social norm.