Submission 86
Institutions and metanorms of punishment: a cross-country analysis
PS2-G08-01
Presented by: Gian Luca Pasin
Sanctions are a public good that benefits all cooperators but are costly for the punisher only. While everyone prefers free-riders to be punished, they often avoid the cost of punishing themselves. This dilemma may be resolved through mechanisms like emotions, norms, and social preferences, which bypass rational calculations and enable punishment. We propose that metanorms—higher-order norms governing how norms are enforced—play a key role. Metanorms reflect societal expectations about the legitimacy and fairness of punishment. This project investigates how the institutional context shapes the emergence of metanorms, focusing on their role in legitimizing punishment.
Institutions differ in how effectively they punish norm violations. Despite limited transparency, people form expectations about formal punishment practices. How do people internalize laws as social norms about punishment?
To address this question we use data from a cross-country survey (Andrighetto et al., 2024) and study the association between institutional context and metanorms. Participants respond to a norm violation scenario in the cooperation domain (e.g., depleting a common resource), and metanorms are assessed through approval of direct (e.g., angry remarks) and indirect (e.g., gossip) punishment. The institutional context is operationalized using the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, which measures the extent to which laws are fairly applied and enforced.
Drawing on theories in economics, political science and sociology, we explore two competing perspectives on the associations between the strength of the rule of law and metanorms. The "reinforcement" view posits that a strong rule of law, characterized by accessible, fair, and efficient legal institutions, fosters metanorms that encourage informal, potentially arbitrary, punishment. Conversely, the "substitution" view suggests that a weaker rule of law, characterized by limited access to justice, creates a gap in social order. This gap, we argue, is often filled by individuals and communities "taking justice into their own hands," leading to metanorms that are more tolerant of informal sanctions, including those that might otherwise be considered antisocial (i.e., physical punishment). The survey allows us to rigorously test how norms about both direct and indirect punishments vary across countries.
The survey results will inform an experimental design to test the causal effect of institutional context on metanorms. By experimentally manipulating the rule of law (weak vs. strong), we aim to replicate and extend the survey findings, assessing how norms about punishment vary in response to institutional strength.
This project contributes to the literature on institutions and social norms by advancing our understanding of how metanorms emerge in different institutional contexts. It also has implications for policies aimed at fostering cooperation and reducing antisocial behaviors in societies with varying levels of institutional effectiveness.
Reference:
Andrighetto, G., Szekely, A., Guido, A., Gelfand, M., Abernathy, J., Arikan, G., Aycan, Z., Bankar, S., Barrera, D., & Basnight-Brown, D. (2024). Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries. Nature Communications, 15(1), 1436.
Institutions differ in how effectively they punish norm violations. Despite limited transparency, people form expectations about formal punishment practices. How do people internalize laws as social norms about punishment?
To address this question we use data from a cross-country survey (Andrighetto et al., 2024) and study the association between institutional context and metanorms. Participants respond to a norm violation scenario in the cooperation domain (e.g., depleting a common resource), and metanorms are assessed through approval of direct (e.g., angry remarks) and indirect (e.g., gossip) punishment. The institutional context is operationalized using the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, which measures the extent to which laws are fairly applied and enforced.
Drawing on theories in economics, political science and sociology, we explore two competing perspectives on the associations between the strength of the rule of law and metanorms. The "reinforcement" view posits that a strong rule of law, characterized by accessible, fair, and efficient legal institutions, fosters metanorms that encourage informal, potentially arbitrary, punishment. Conversely, the "substitution" view suggests that a weaker rule of law, characterized by limited access to justice, creates a gap in social order. This gap, we argue, is often filled by individuals and communities "taking justice into their own hands," leading to metanorms that are more tolerant of informal sanctions, including those that might otherwise be considered antisocial (i.e., physical punishment). The survey allows us to rigorously test how norms about both direct and indirect punishments vary across countries.
The survey results will inform an experimental design to test the causal effect of institutional context on metanorms. By experimentally manipulating the rule of law (weak vs. strong), we aim to replicate and extend the survey findings, assessing how norms about punishment vary in response to institutional strength.
This project contributes to the literature on institutions and social norms by advancing our understanding of how metanorms emerge in different institutional contexts. It also has implications for policies aimed at fostering cooperation and reducing antisocial behaviors in societies with varying levels of institutional effectiveness.
Reference:
Andrighetto, G., Szekely, A., Guido, A., Gelfand, M., Abernathy, J., Arikan, G., Aycan, Z., Bankar, S., Barrera, D., & Basnight-Brown, D. (2024). Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries. Nature Communications, 15(1), 1436.