Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs.

Does competition affect moral behavior? This fundamental question has been debated among leading scholars for centuries, and more recently, it has been tested in experimental studies yielding a body of rather inconclusive empirical evidence. A potential source of ambivalent empirical results on the same hypothesis is design heterogeneity-variation in true effect sizes across various reasonable experimental research protocols. To provide further evidence on whether competition affects moral behavior and to examine whether the generalizability of a single experimental study is jeopardized by design heterogeneity, we invited independent research teams to contribute experimental designs to a crowd-sourced project. In a large-scale online data collection, 18,123 experimental participants were randomly allocated to 45 randomly selected experimental designs out of 95 submitted designs. We find a small adverse effect of competition on moral behavior in a meta-analysis of the pooled data. The crowd-sourced design of our study allows for a clean identification and estimation of the variation in effect sizes above and beyond what could be expected due to sampling variance. We find substantial design heterogeneity-estimated to be about 1.6 times as large as the average standard error of effect size estimates of the 45 research designs-indicating that the informativeness and generalizability of results based on a single experimental design are limited. Drawing strong conclusions about the underlying hypotheses in the presence of substantive design heterogeneity requires moving toward much larger data collections on various experimental designs testing the same hypothesis.

Nudging enforcers: how norm perceptions and motives for lying shape sanctions.

We conduct three studies, employing diverse methodologies (a behavioral experiment, a vignette experiment, and a norm elicitation experiment), to investigate when and how norm enforcement patterns can be modified using norm interventions in the context of dishonesty. Our preregistered, three-part data collection effort explores the extent to which norm violations are sanctioned, the impact of norm-nudges on punishment behavior, and the connection to norm perception. Using a representative sample of US participants in Study 1, we present robust evidence that norm enforcement is sensitive not only to the magnitude of the observed transgression (i.e. the size of the lie) but also to its consequences (whether the lie addresses or creates payoff inequalities). We also find that norm enforcers respond to norm-nudges conveying social information about actual lying behavior or its social disapproval. The results of a separate vignette experiment in Study 2 are consistent with the results in our behavioral experiment, thus hinting at the generalizability of our findings. To understand the interplay of norms, information about them, and punishment, we examine norm perceptions across different transgressions in Study 3. We find that norm perceptions are malleable and norm-nudges are most effective when preexisting norms are ambiguous. In sum, we show how norm enforcement can be nudged and which factors matter for doing so across various contexts and discuss their policy implications.

Meta-nudging honesty: Past, present, and future of the research frontier.

Achieving successful and long-lasting behavior change via nudging comes with challenges. This is particularly true when choice architects attempt to change behavior that is collectively harmful but individually beneficial, such as dishonesty. Here, we introduce the concept of "meta-nudging" and illustrate its potential benefits in the context of promoting honesty. The meta-nudging approach implies that instead of nudging end-users directly, one would nudge them indirectly via "social influencers." That is, one can arguably achieve better success by changing the behavior of those who have the ability to enforce other's behavior and norm adherence. We argue that this represents a promising new behavior change approach that helps overcome some of the challenges that the classical nudging approach has faced. We use the case of nudging honesty to develop the theoretical foundation of meta-nudging and discuss avenues for future work.

Politicizing mask-wearing: predicting the success of behavioral interventions among republicans and democrats in the U.S.

Scientists and policymakers seek to choose effective interventions that promote preventative health measures. We evaluated whether academics, behavioral science practitioners, and laypeople (N = 1034) were able to forecast the effectiveness of seven different messages compared to a baseline message for Republicans and Democrats separately. These messages were designed to nudge mask-wearing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. When examining predictions across political parties, forecasters predicted larger effects than those observed for Democrats compared to Republicans and made more accurate predictions for Republicans compared to Democrats. These results are partly driven by a lack of nudge effects on Democrats, as reported in Gelfand et al. (J Exp Soc Psychol, 2021). Academics and practitioners made more accurate predictions compared to laypeople. Although forecasters' predictions were correlated with the nudge interventions, all groups overestimated the observed results. We discuss potential reasons for why the forecasts did not perform better and how more accurate forecasts of behavioral intervention outcomes could potentially provide insight that can help save resources and increase the efficacy of interventions.

Authoritarian leaders share conspiracy theories to attack opponents, galvanize followers, shift blame, and undermine democratic institutions.

Although many virtuous leaders are guided by the ideal of prioritizing the needs and welfare of their subordinates, others advance their self-interest at the expense of the people they purport to serve. In this article, we discuss conspiracy theories as a tool that leaders use to advance their personal interests. We propose that leaders spread conspiracy theories in service of four primary goals: 1) to attack opponents; 2) to galvanize followers; 3) to shift blame and responsibility; and 4) to undermine institutions that threaten their power. We argue that authoritarian, populist, and conservative leaders are most likely to spread conspiracy theories during periods of instability.

Persuading republicans and democrats to comply with mask wearing: An intervention tournament.

Many people practiced COVID-19-related safety measures in the first year of the pandemic, but Republicans were less likely to engage in behaviors such as wearing masks or face coverings than Democrats, suggesting radical disparities in health practices split along political fault lines. We developed an "intervention tournament" which aimed to identify the framings that would promote mask wearing among a representative sample of Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. from Oct 14, 2020, to Jan 14, 2021 (N = 4931). Seven different conditions reflecting different moral values and factors specific to COVID-19-including protection from harm (self), protection from harm (community), patriotic duty, purity, reviving the economy, threat, and scientific evidence-were implemented to identify which framings would "win" in terms of promoting mask wearing compared to a baseline condition. We found that Republicans had significantly more negative attitudes toward masks, lower intentions to wear them, and were less likely to sign or share pledges on social media than Democrats, which was partially mediated by Republicans, compared to Democrats, perceiving that the threat of COVID-19 was lower. None of our framing conditions significantly affected Republicans' or Democrats' attitudes, intentions, or behaviors compared to the baseline condition, illustrating the difficulty in overcoming the strength of political polarization during COVID-19.

Efficient Institutions and Effective Deterrence: On Timing and Uncertainty of Formal Sanctions.

Economic theory suggests that the deterrence of deviant behavior is driven by a combination of severity and certainty of punishment. This paper presents the first controlled experiment to study a third important factor that has been mainly overlooked: the swiftness of formal sanctions. We consider two dimensions: the timing at which the uncertainty about whether one will be punished is dissolved and the timing at which the punishment is actually imposed, as well as the combination thereof. By varying these dimensions of delay systematically, we find a surprising non-monotonic relation with deterrence: either no delay (immediate resolution and immediate punishment) or maximum delay (both resolution and punishment as much as possible delayed) emerge as most effective at deterring deviant behavior and recidivism. Our results yield implications for the design of institutional policies aimed at mitigating misconduct and reducing recidivism. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at doi:10.1007/s11166-021-09352-x.