1Words or Deeds? Choosing what to know about others Erte Xiao†‡ and Cristina Bicchieri* August 2009 Abstract Social cooperation often relies on individuals’ spontaneous norm obedience when there is no punishment for violation or reward for compliance. However, people do not consistently follow pro-social norms. Previous studies have suggested that an individual’s tendency toward norm conformity is affected by empirical information (i.e. what others did or would do in a similar situation) as well as by normative information (i.e. what others think one ought to do). Yet little is known about whether people have an intrinsic desire to obtain norm-revealing information. In this paper, we use a dictator game to investigate whether dictators actively seek norm-revealing information and, if so, whether they prefer to get empirical or normative information. Our data show that although the majority of dictators choose to view free information before making decisions, they are equally likely to choose empirical or normative information. However, a large majority (more than 80%) of dictators are not willing to incur even a very small cost for getting information. Our findings help to understand why norm compliance is context-dependent, and highlight the importance of making norm-revealing information salient in order to promote conformity. . Acknowledgement: We gratefully acknowledge the Goldstone Research Unit for funding that supported this research. We received valuable comments from Daniel Houser, Roberto Weber as well as attendees of the 2008 Economic Science Association meetings. † Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, 208 Porter Hall, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, 412-268-6780 (office), [email protected]. * University of Pennsylvania, Department of Philosophy and Wharton School, 491 Cohen Hall, 249, S. 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, 215.898.5820 (office), [email protected]. ‡ Correspondence to E.X.2I. Introduction Social cooperation often relies on individuals’ spontaneous norm obedience when there is no punishment for violation or reward for compliance. Previous studies have suggested that an individual’s tendency toward norm conformity is affected by what he/she believes others would do in a similar situation (i.e. empirical expectations of norm compliance) and what he/she believes others think he/she ought to do (i.e. normative expectations of norm compliance.)1 Yet little is known about whether people have an intrinsic desire to obtain norm-revealing empirical information (i.e. what the majority does or did) and/or normative information (i.e. what the majority think one ought to do) when making decisions. If they do, we would expect individuals not just to actively look for information, but also to be prepared to pay for it. The answer to this question is important, especially for policy-makers who want to design policies aimed at influencing people’s pro-social behavior. To boost norm compliance, policy makers may have to influence people’s expectations via careful diffusion of norm-relevant information. In this paper, we design novel experiments to investigate individuals’ demand for empirical/normative information in an environment that involves norm conformity. To date, a large number of interesting research findings have left little doubt that social norms can be an important motivator of individual decision-making (e.g. Fehr and Fischbacher, 2004). For example, people reciprocate trust even when it is in their own self-interest not to do so (Berg et al, 1995; Cox, 2004), and cooperate in social dilemmas even when their defection would go undetected (Ledyard, 1995). On the other hand, if social norms guide decision-making, we must explain why we see variations in norm 1 See Bicchieri, 2006; Bicchieri and Xiao, 2008; Bicchieri and Chavez (2009); Cason and Mui, 1998; Bardsley and Sausgruber, 2005; Krupka and Weber, 2006; Sugden, 1998 and 2004.3conformity across different situations (Dawes et al, 1977). Recent research has begun to shed light on the underlying mechanism of how norms influence behavior. One possible explanation is that individuals have a conditional preference for following a norm, provided certain empirical and normative expectations are met (Bicchieri, 2006).2 This view of social norms suggests that an individual’s expectations and subsequent behavior would be affected by norm-revealing information even if it is payoff-irrelevant. Previous empirical research has shown the influence of information on pro-social behavior, even when the information is payoff irrelevant (see, e.g. Bardsley and Sausgruber, 2005; Bicchieri and Xiao, 2008; Bicchieri and Chavez, 2009; Cason and Mui, 1998; Frey and Meier, 2004; Krupka and Weber, 2008). However, one important and as yet unanswered question is whether individuals have an intrinsic desire to obtain norm-revealing information before making a decision. The social psychology literature on informational and normative influence (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955; Kelley, 1952) tells us that, when people are uncertain about how to act because the situation is ambiguous, they will try to gather information about the behavior/expectations of others similarly situated. However, this literature does not explore people’s willingness to pay for such information, even if the gathering process may itself involve some cost. Thus, the fact that gathering information is often costly raises the additional question of whether people are willing to incur costs to obtain norm-revealing information. 2 Assuming conditional preferences for following a social norm is different from assuming a pro-social preference. The latter implies one should not be influenced by information about other people’s beliefs or behavior contrary to one’s preference. (see Bicchieri (2006, Ch.3) for details). The details about the differences among empirical expectation, normative expectation and second-order expectation are discussed in Bicchieri (2006, Ch. 1).4 It is worth noting that empirical information does not seem to play the same role as normative information in decision-making. Bicchieri and Xiao (2008) studied a dictator game in which selected information about norm compliance/transgression by previous players was provided in order to manipulate dictators’ normative and empirical expectations about other dictators’ beliefs/choices in the