Abstract
Literature on motivation crowding of financial incentives points to a potential role of social norms, but this literature has not attempted to quantify that role. We present an interdisciplinary model from economics and communication science that measures the effects of financial incentives on social norms and their joint effects on behavior, including after incentives have ended. In a framed field experiment with Tibetan herders in Qinghai, China, we find that a temporary payment for participation in a patrol against illegal wildlife trapping reinforces a perceived injunctive norm that this conservation behavior meets with social approval. This norm remains heightened even after the payment has ended, continuing to positively influence the decision to participate in anti-trapping patrols in the experiment. This finding suggests that, under certain circumstances, a carefully framed incentive for conservation behavior can support injunctive norms in favor of conservation behavior.
Highlights
With the spread of payment for ecosystem services (PES) worldwide, recent years have seen growing interest in the importance of designing PES in a way that strengthens rather than competes with other sources of motivation regarding the behavior that it seeks to encourage (Bowles and Polánia-Reyes 2012; Kerr et al 2014; Rode et al 2015; Brent et al 2017; Moros et al 2018)
In a framed field experiment with Tibetan herders in Qinghai, China, we find that a temporary payment for participation in a patrol against illegal wildlife trapping reinforces a perceived injunctive norm that this conservation behavior meets with social approval
perceived injunctive norms (PIN) has a strong positive effect on the number of days volunteered, significant at 1% in Model 2 and 5% in Model 3. This result supports H3. (Note that the injunctive norms message did not have a significant impact on the number of volunteered.) The results show that receiving a financial incentive in phase 2 but having it removed has an insignificant impact on the number of days volunteered in phase 3, but it has opposite signs in Models 2 and 3
Summary
With the spread of payment for ecosystem services (PES) worldwide, recent years have seen growing interest in the importance of designing PES in a way that strengthens rather than competes with other sources of motivation regarding the behavior that it seeks to encourage (Bowles and Polánia-Reyes 2012; Kerr et al 2014; Rode et al 2015; Brent et al 2017; Moros et al 2018). An environment in which payment for patrolling is being introduced into an area where practical concerns about the competitive relationship between wildlife and local livelihoods are juxtaposed with the cultural traditions and norms favoring conservation, is an ideal context for applying our model. People could perceive that if some entity (e.g. a government or a donor organization) is paying to promote the behavior it must be important, and perhaps this could reinforce any previously existing injunctive norm. These are just illustrations of possible ways in which norms could influence behavior. Crowding in might occur if a carefully framed payment were to reinforce existing positive attitudes, in part by demonstrating the authorities’ recognition and respect for the public’s role in environmental protection (Bowles and Polánia-Reyes 2012; Rode et al 2015)
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