Besides creating fear of sanctions, laws sometimes express collective commitments that can affect people’s behavior in at least two ways. First, a law can frame an act as wrong and elicit intrinsic motivation to avoid doing it. Second, when people benefit from doing the same thing as others, a law can cause people to conform to it because they believe that others will do so. We investigate framing and coordination effects experimentally in three games: a prisoner’s dilemma, a crowding game, and a coordination game. We simulate a law by telling subjects that one choice will result in a probabilistic penalty. In the prisoner’s dilemma and the crowding game, announcing the penalty had no effect. In the coordination game, announcing the penalty caused behavior to jump to the Pareto-superior equilibrium. Our results suggest that law’s largest effects come from equilibrium selection and not from preference change.

According to economists, severe legal sanctions deter violations of the law. According to legal scholars, people may obey law backed by mild sanctions because of norm-activation. We experimentally investigate the effects of mild and severe legal sanctions in the provision of public goods. The results show that severe sanctions almost perfectly deter free-riding. However, people also obey law backed by mild sanctions if it is accepted in a referendum. We show that voting for mild law induces expectations of cooperation, and that people tend to obey the law if they expect many others to do so.

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This paper evaluates a pilot program run by a company called Positive Energy to mail home energy reports that compare a household’s energy use to that of its neighbors and provide energy conservation information. Using data from randomized natural …eld experiment at 80,000 treatment and control households in Minnesota, I estimate that the program reduces energy consumption by 1.9 percent relative to baseline. In a treatment group receiving reports each quarter, the e¤ects appear to decay in the intervening months, suggesting that the reports successfully motivate or remind households to conserve but that this attention or motivation is not durable. I show that “pro…ling,”or using a statistical decision rule to target the program at households whose observable characteristics suggest larger treatment e¤ects, could substantially improve cost e¤ectiveness in future programs. The e¤ects of this program provide additional evidence that non-price “nudges”can substantially a¤ect consumer behavior.

... group communication. Electronic group communication is a key process through which people can maintain communities of practice and leverage the strength of weak ties. Even though prior empirical investigations of electronic group communication have been successful at providing evidence for its effectiveness, these prior studies have not adequately dealt with the differences in the types of technology implementations of electronic group communication. We argue that different social and technical designs of electronic group communication technologies will influence various aspects of electronic group communication, such as level of participation, patterns of interaction and genres of communicative purposes. We propose and define the notion of conversation interface to be an important factor in electronic group communications. This paper illustrates the characteristics of the conversation interface and derives propositions concerning the impacts of conversation interface on electronic group communication based on prior theory. We also conduct an exploratory investigation of actual electronic group communication technologies to highlight the importance of the conversation interface factor. The paper concludes with discussions and directions for future research on electronic group communications.

asked to judge each of 24 real-life events associated with eight different moral values. In a proposed model moral values were seen as mentally represented by schemas and a norm. The main purpose was to test the hypothesis that events that have been categorised as activating the same moral value violate the same norms. The results supported the hypothesis and it was concluded that the results are compatible with a view of norms as part of the mental structure representing moral values.

Model selection for monetary policy analysis – How important is empirical validity?

Addressing climate change: Psychology’s contribution

Abstract: We conducted a field experiment to evaluate the effect of receiving information about the retirement savings decisions of one‘s peers. Non-participants and low savers in one firm‘s 401(k) plan received letters enabling them to enroll or increase their plan contribution rate by returning a simple reply form. Some employees were randomly assigned to receive peer information: a statement about the fraction of their coworker peers who were participating in the plan or a statement about the fraction of their coworker peers who were contributing at least 6% of their salary to the plan. Other employees were randomly assigned to receive no such peer information. We find conflicting evidence on the impact of peer information. Among nonunionized non-participants, there is some evidence that peer information leads to a small increase in participation. But among unionized non-participants, savings plan enrollment was reduced by peer information. These results highlight the possibilities and limitations of using peer information interventions to influence behavior. We thank Hewitt Associates and our corporate partner for conducting the field experiment and providing

Travel demand oriented policies aimed at increasing the sustainability of urban transport often face the problem of overcoming unsustainable behaviour patterns that are principally centred around the car and largely dominated by routine choices that do not take sustainability considerations into account. To overcome the barrier of habitual behaviour patterns, current Travel Behaviour Change campaigns are principally based on the provision of information about the effects of modal choices and the availability and benefits of modes other than the car. However, current research in the domain of public health, energy consumption, waste management, etc. have shown that information-based campaigns, including the use of incentives, are by and large insufficient for stimulating behavioural change of lasting effect. In this context, social psychology offers a series of six specific persuasion techniques that are equally suitable for private sector marketing as for community based social marketing strategies and that are able to reach beyond the mere raising of awareness and knowledge (Cialdini, 2001).