Abstract
The literature on social norms has often stressed that social disapproval is crucial to foster compliance with norms and promote fair and cooperative behavior. With this in mind, we explore the disapproval of allocation decisions using experimental data from five dictator games with a feedback stage. Our data suggests that subjects are heterogeneous in their disapproval patterns, distinguishing two main groups: (1) Subjects who only disapprove choices that harm them, and (2) subjects who disapprove socially inefficient choices.
Highlights
Social scientists have often stressed that social disapproval can foster normative behavior and cooperation within groups—see [1] for numerous illustrations
A growing experimental literature shows that the availability of approval/disapproval increases contributions in public goods games, cooperation in social dilemmas [5], or generosity in dictator games [6,7]
We focus on our main objective, which is the elicitation and classification of the disapproval patterns of the recipients using again costless messages
Summary
Social scientists have often stressed that social disapproval can foster normative behavior and cooperation within groups—see [1] for numerous illustrations. A growing experimental literature shows that the availability of approval/disapproval increases contributions in public goods games (see, for instance, [2,3,4]), cooperation in social dilemmas [5], or generosity in dictator games [6,7]. Given this evidence, it seems important to understand which kind of behavior tends to be disapproved, as this could clarify further how (and when) social disapproval affects cooperation and generous behavior. Much of the existing literature on social norms emphasizes that norms are partly sustained by the disapproval of others. [8], (p. 104), for instance, contends that “when people obey norms, they often want to avoid the disapproval—ranging from raised eyebrows to social ostracism— of other people.”
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