Extrasocial Influences
and Social Norms
• “Social” = social expectations within
reference network
• “Extrasocial” = economic, legal,
political, religious, health or
educational services, technological,
other
Preview
• Multiple determination of action
• Levels of causation in present
• Extrasocial origins of a social norm
• Extrasocial influences on social-norm change
• Economic incentives to promote beneficial
practices
• Harmonization of legal norms with moral norms
and social norms
Multiple Determination of Action
• Past causes at different
levels
• Levels of Causation in
Present
What Works to Prevent
Partner Violence, Lori Heise
• Change social norms
• AND:
• Prevent & mitigate exposure
to violence in childhood
– Parenting programs
– Reduce corporal punishment
– Legal and policy reform
• Reduce harmful alcohol abuse
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Brief interventions
Structural interventions
Community interventions
Treatment and self-help
support
• Women’s economic
empowerment
– Microfinance
– Conditional cash transfer
• Legal and justice system
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Law reform
Civil remedies
Police practice
Coordinated community
response
– Informal justice and rightsbased responses
Extrasocial Origin of Social Norm
New Technology & Change in Relative Price of Labor
• Boserup Hypothesis:
– Shifting hoe & stick cultivation (sorghum, millet,
root, tree)
• Done by women
• Compatible with child care
– Plough cultivation (wheat, barley, rye, wet rice)
• Male upper body strength
• Less need for weeding (done by women & children)
• Male labor becomes relatively more valuable than
female labor in agriculture
Boserup Hypothesis
• Plough agriculture societies (compared
to hoe agriculture societies):
– Stronger gendered division of labor
– Stronger norm that the woman belongs in
the home
– Persists even as society moves out of
agriculture
• Which suggests that pattern of behavior is
maintained by social expectations
“On the Origin of Gender Roles,”
Alesina, Giuliano, Nunn, 2011
• In countries with past tradition of plough
use,
– women less likely now to participate in
labor market, own or manage firms,
participate in labor markets
– individual women more likely to agree that
men make better political leaders, and
similar findings (World Values Survey)
Caused by Larger Institutions
or by Social Expectations?
• Second-generation immigrant women in
the USA today are raised under U.S.
political and economic institutions
• Among those women
– If their parents came from an area with a
plough tradition, the daughters are less
likely to participate in the female labor
force!
Imperial Origins of Extreme Chastity
and Fidelity Social Norms
• Footbinding and FGC are found in proximity to
ancient, highly-stratified empires
STRATIFICATION PYRAMID
PRACTICE
WOMEN
Positional Competition over
Chastity and Fidelity
• Imperial female slavery
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China – Footbinding
Nubia, Mali – FGC
Northern part of Indian subcontinent – Seclusion of Women
Mediterranean (Rome) – internalized honor & modesty code
• Exaggerated chastity and fidelity practices, linked to
marriageability, persist for centuries after originating
conditions of imperial female slavery have vanished
– Maintained by social expectations
• Women are inferred to be wanton because such practices
exist (inferring internal disposition from external evidence)
Extrasocial Influence on
Social Norm Change
• Wood and Eagly: “Semi-equality” of gender roles
in industrialized societies
• Sharp reduction in birth rates and length of
lactation
– Due to technology, health and education services
– Results in less reproductive burden on women
• Shift of occupational structure – labor market
now values brain more than brawn
– Due to economic development, urbanization, etc.
– Less advantage to male’s greater physical strength
Extrasocial Influence on
Social Norm Change
• J.F. Collier, 1998, From Duty to Desire:
Remaking Families in a Spanish Village
– Mountain agricultural village of 600 in Andalucía
– Studied by ethnographer Collier in 1963 & 1983
• 1963
– Self-concept: meet social obligations
– Political economy: agriculture
– Wealth, power, rank: own more land than others
• Zero-sum
1963, continued
• Goal of marriage: maximize land holdings of
couple: positional competition
– Style of marriage: patriarchal
– Parents demand obedience from children
• Strict honor and modesty code
• Girls must be extremely chaste – easily ruined
– Boys could chase “bad” girls in other towns
• Early betrothal and lengthy courtship – 10 years!
• Protect reputations of family and property,
constant concern for what others might say
Change in Political Economy
Death of Franco, 1975
• Economic development increased in the cities
• Socially marginal people in the village emigrated
to the cities
• They learned skills on the job and sought
education to increase their earnings
• Lowland agriculture became mechanized,
mountain agriculture became uncompetitive
• Emigrants gradually become more prosperous
than landholders in the village
– Became more attractive as mates than traditional
agriculturalists
1983
• Self-concept: think for oneself
• Political economy: differentiated modern labor
market
• Wealth, power, rank: personal skill, education,
earnings
– Commercial society: positive-sum, gains from trade
• Goal of marriage: romantic love (with skilled
earner)
– Style of marriage: partnership
– Parents desire affection of children
1983, continued
• More relaxed dating
– Less of a double standard
– Later betrothal (due to need for skill acquisition),
briefer courtship
• Realize oneself, express own thoughts and
feelings, choose among alternatives
Reflections on From Duty to Desire
• Much of long-run culture has to do with being
suitable as a marriage partner and a
successful parent
– Maximize land holdings of couple vs.
– Join with skilled earner in developed economy
• Those without the requisite traits vanish from
the population
Economic Incentives to Promote
Beneficial Practices
Crowding Out of Moral or Social Motivation
by Market Motivation
• Gneezy and Rustichini, “A Fine is a Price,”
experiment, with 11 real daycare centers
– At week 5, parents are told a new rule: “a fine on
parents who come late to pick up their children”
• The number of late parents more than doubles over a
few weeks and stays high
– At week 17 the rule is cancelled
• Number of late parents stays high afterwards
Rule imposed week 5
Rule removed week 17
Paying to Change Practices
adapted from Gneezy, Meyer, and Rey-Biel, 2011
• Standard economic view
– Paying more increases desired behavior
– External motive is added to internal motive
• But sometimes paying more decreases the
desired behavior
– External motive “crowds out” the internal motive
• Why?
– When payment of money changes the meaning of
the situation
Crowding Out
• Bad news
– Paying someone to do a task may communicate to
them that the task is difficult, or unattractive, or
that the recipient is not good at it
• Not internally motivated
– Paying someone may communicate to them that
they have do not have enough internal motivation
to comply, for example, that they are not trusted
Crowding Out When Incentives
are in Place
• Offering a community large compensation for
siting a nuclear waste facility decreased
community support for it (conveys information
about how bad the facility would be)
• “Pay enough, or don’t pay at all” (Gneezy &
Rustichini)
– Small payment to students who collected money for
charity depressed their performance – due to a
reduced internal motivation
– Large payment increased their performance
Crowding Out After Incentives
are Removed
• If paying someone communicates bad news,
then the information conveyed likely remains
the same even after the incentive is removed
– Permanently reduced performance
• Sometimes short-term incentives cause longterm change
– Enough to experience the benefits of a good habit
– Gerry Mackie’s son was paid to read but after a
few years refused to accept money for reading
Conditional Cash Transfers
in Education
• Incentives are usually large enough
• Results
– Works well to increase attendance and enrollment
• Also works on younger siblings not incentivized
– Modest and mixed results on increasing effort and
achievement
– Works for some students but not for others
– Effect after incentives are removed is unclear
Prosocial Behavior
• Social dilemma laboratory experiments
– Framing: “Wall Street Game” vs.
“Community Game”
– UNICEF CATS – no subsidies for latrine use
• Israeli daycare experiment
– Fine changes it from a social setting to a
market setting
• (one interpretation of results)
Reflections
• Effect of conditional cash transfer could just be
from the extra income
– So, in addition to no treatment, a control condition
should usually be unconditional cash transfer
• If an issue is strongly social, then consider
conditional cash transfer at the social level, to a
community
– Frame the reward as an honor rather than a bribe
• Valuable noncash reward may be a way do that
• It’s not money itself, but what money means in
the context
Outlaw Harmful Social Norms?
Preview
• Criminalization Frequent Remedy Against Harmful
Practices
• Fallacy of Legal Centralism
– Legal Obedience Can’t be Generally Assumed
• Build social norm of legal obedience
• New legal norm closer to current social norm
• Goal is to reduce harm effectively, criminalization
only as a careful part of an integrated moralsocial-legal effort
Criminalization is a Frequent Remedy
Against Harmful Social Norms
• Female genital cutting
• Child marriage
• Legal ban on corporal punishment of children
in schools
• And more…
Obedience of Law
• Legal Obedience & Disobedience can be to
– Law in general
– A specific law
– And, if many specific laws are disobeyed that can spread
into broader legal disobedience
• Standard Story
– People obey law
• Because they believe the authority is legitimate (moral)
• Or because they fear legal punishment
• Seldom mentioned: social norm of legal obedience,
even at times a social norm of legal disobedience
Why Failure to Obey the Law?
• No social norm of legal obedience (or
even a social norm of legal
disobedience), or,
• New legal norm is too far from current
social norm,
• Or both
When there is No Social Norm
of Legal Obedience
Fallacy of Legal Centralism
(that Law is the Best Method of Social Change)
• Legal Centralism:
– In most places most people obey most laws
– Hence, law is always the best way to to bring about social
change and to remedy social harms
• However, general and specific legal obedience depends
on individuals’ beliefs
– In legitimacy of the government and its laws
– That government enforces the law with rewards and
penalties
– That there is a social norm of legal obedience
• Others follow the law
• Others think one ought to follow the law, and may informally
apply negative sanctions to those who don’t
Legal Obedience
US Criminology: Extralegal Sanctions are More
Influential than Legal Sanctions
• Extralegal sanction =
– Moral and social responses in the reference network
to arrest, trial, or conviction
• Independent of law and its enforcement
• Nagin and Pogarsky evidence review
– “A belief that illicit conduct is wrong [moral], and the
fear of peer disapproval, embarrassment, or social
stigma [social] discourage offending behavior.
– Further, several studies investigating the relative
strength of both sanction forms find the conforming
influence of extralegal sanctions to be far greater than
that from legal sanctions.”
No Social Norm of Legal Obedience
Kurkchiyan, Post-Soviet Societies
• If everyone routinely disobeys the law,
both officials and citizens, then
– One conforms to the general practice
– Even if that goes against one’s moral
commitments to the law and its purposes
– GM: Be the only family not to pay a bribe
for medical treatment, and have your child
go untreated
Post-Soviet Societies
(Galligan, Kurkchiyan)
• Same moral values as Western Europe (survey)
– Corrupt law and enforcement offend people’s sense of right
and wrong
• Main difference – luck, not virtue
– Western Europe – social norm of legal obedience present,
one is born into it
– Post-Soviet societies – social norm of legal obedience
absent, one is born into its lack
• Because the prior authority imposed external and alien law and
people responded by following workable and familiar social
norms
• Similar for some post-colonial societies
When the Legal Norm is Too Far
from the Social Norm
New Legal Norm Too Far
From Current Social Norm
• Law enforcers don’t enforce (Kagan)
– Police and prosecutors
• Limited resources + discretion = they will pursue crimes that
enforcers and local community want to be punished
– Judges and juries
• Reluctant to punish when crimes they think are worse are
punished less or not at all
– If there is pressure to enforce,
• It will likely be against the poorer and weaker parts of the
community (e.g., alcohol prohibition in the U.S., Stuntz)
• Could even drive social norm further away, by increasing public
knowledge of the fact that many don’t obey (Parisi)
New Legal Norm Too Far
From Current Social Norm
• Citizens don’t obey
– Normative: General and particular legitimacy of law is undermined –
law should approximate popular views
– Empirical: Others don’t obey, why should I?
• Bicchieri: Empirical more influential than normative
Solution: Not Law Alone!
Mockus: Harmonization of Norms
• Mockus: Harmonization of Norms
– Core moral norms agreed upon in public discussion
– Legal norms should implement those moral norms
– Social norms should support correct moral and legal
norms
• How legal norm affects a social norm
– Law can strengthen the contrary social norm, or can
drive activity underground, making social methods of
change difficult
– Law can indicate that society judges something wrong,
and thereby be a reason to change a contrary social
norm
Enact Legal Norm Closer to Social Norm
(Kagan)
• Law enforcers
– Now, for them, general obedience to law is of
greater weight than moderate departure of the
legal norm from the current social norm
• Citizens
– Moral: same as for law enforcers
– Empirical: expect more people to comply
voluntarily, expect more people to comply due to
stronger law enforcement
The Legal-Social-Legal…
Ratchet (Kagan)
• Enact moderate new legal norm
– Is more enforced, more legitimate, more obeyed,
– Over time, pulls social norm in its direction
• Later, enact a moderately stronger legal norm
– Pulls social norm further
• Still later, enact a stronger legal norm, etc.
• U.S. examples: smoking, domestic violence,
drunk driving, sexual harassment in workplace,
strengthened over 30 years
Examples
• Gabon and Senegal, from ban on polygamy, to monogamy or
polygamy as choice in initial marriage contract (Platteau)
• Ghana, women and children’s inheritance rights, moderate law
more effective than previous extreme law (Platteau)
• Bogota, high firearm mortality, ban guns on weekends
(Mockus); voluntary surrender of firearms
– Direct and indirect effects
• Empirical observations in many cultures of informal community
resolution of tragedy-of commons problems (use of pasture,
forests, fishery, etc., Ostrom)
– Negative sanctions are initially mild and gradually increase