Social Norms, Expectations, and the Power of the Audience: An Experiment with Knowledge Asymmetries

Social norms are conventions whose violation generates disapproval. The dependence of behavior on normative expectations is conventionally assessed in experiments where the key manipulation is either a change in description (framing effect) or a plausible deniability treatment. As an alternative we design an experiment that manipulates normative expectations holding the core task, instructions, and action set constant. Our design exploits the contrast between merit-based and equity-based norms. In a Dictator Game with earned endowments, participants are “judged” by an audience. We manipulate information on the source of endowment by varying whether the auditors are instructed outside or inside the main room. We predict and find that dictators’ allocations shift according to the perceived normative expectations of their audience, even in the absence of explicit norm enforcement.