Convince Yourself to Do the Right Thing: The Effects of Provided Versus Self-Generated Arguments on Rule Compliance and Perceived Importance of Socially Desirable Behavior.

Nieke Lemmen,Thijs Bouman,Kees Keizer,Linda Steg

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.613418

Abstract

One way to enhance rule compliance is to provide people with arguments explaining why the desired behavior is important. We argue that there might be another, potentially more effective way to enhance rule compliance: ask people to generate arguments in favor of the rule themselves, which can trigger a process of self-persuasion. We compared the effects of providing arguments, asking respondents to generate arguments themselves, and a combination of both approaches on rule compliance and the perceived importance of the rule. A field experiment revealed that rule compliance was higher in all experimental conditions compared to a control condition, with the highest level of rule compliance in the conditions that either presented the arguments or asked people to generate arguments themselves. Yet the rule was only evaluated as more important compared to the control condition, when people generated arguments themselves. This study suggests that rule compliance and perceived importance of this rule can be enhanced by easy low-cost interventions.

Highlights

Many organizations implement rules to encourage socially desired behavior
People convince themselves of the importance of the behavior instead of being convinced by an external source, which can make them more likely to follow the rule as they are motivated to be consistent with their own arguments
We investigated whether combining the two approaches, so that arguments are provided to people before they are asked to come up with their own arguments, would weaken the self-persuasion effect because people may not feel they themselves were the ones coming up with arguments, or whether it would strengthen the self-persuasion effect by making it easier for people to come up with arguments themselves

Summary

Introduction

Many organizations implement rules to encourage socially desired behavior. It is assumed that providing arguments explaining why it is important to follow such rules will increase rule compliance. Prohibitions signs set up near lakes and forests explaining that littering is not allowed in order to conserve and protect the natural environment or persuasive messages placed along highways to convince drivers that it is important to keep to lowered speed limits in order to reduce accidents and emissions. Primate Park Apenheul, a zoo in Netherlands where the current research was conducted, has implemented a rule that visitors are not allowed to lure monkeys in areas where they roam freely amongst visitors. They provide visitors with arguments explaining the rationale behind this rule. Visitors are told not to lure the monkeys because this intimidates the monkeys and disturbs their natural behavior. The assumption is that such arguments will make it more likely that people acknowledge the importance of the rule and comply to it

Methods

Results

Conclusion