Break the rules, or fall in line?
Meizhi Lang/Unsplash
Would you follow a rule, even if doing so harms you and no one would know if you broke it? A series of experiments suggests that 1 in 4 people do exactly that: obey rules unconditionally, even in the absence of social pressure, punishment and personal gain. The results challenge traditional economic theories, which assume that rule-following is driven largely by extrinsic incentives, and could reshape how we design new laws.
“Following or breaking rules is what human social behaviour often amounts to,” says Simon Gaechter at the University of Nottingham, UK, but researchers disagree on why we do so. “Economists tend to emphasise extrinsic incentives, and other social scientists stress the importance of conformity.”
Motivated to create some unity, Gaechter and his colleagues created a variety of simple computer tasks in which more than 14,000 people were told to move a circle to a red traffic light, wait until it turned green, and then reach a finish line as quickly as possible to maximise their reward.
In each test, participants started with $20 but the reward fell by $1 per second, so breaking the rules by not waiting for the green light would mean more money. Yet despite participants being told their actions were anonymous and no one would be watching what they did, around 70 per cent of people still followed the rule, waiting for the traffic light to turn green before proceeding.
Even when the researchers pointed out the potential gain from breaking the rule, the majority of people still complied. “There was no social pressure, it was anonymous, there was absolutely no reason to follow the rule, nevertheless, almost 60 per cent of people followed it,” says Gaechter.
To explore the influence of social expectations on rule-following, the team asked participants about whether they thought others would or should obey the rule. Those who thought others would comply were more likely to follow the rule themselves, showing that even when alone, people form internal beliefs about what is socially acceptable and adjust their actions accordingly.
The study reinforces the fact that perceived social expectations influence our behaviour, says Pieter Desmet at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands – an idea that has been exploited by “nudge units” in governments. “Simply adding ‘9 out of 10 people pay their taxes on time’ to a reminder letter can significantly speed up tax compliance. It powers some of the most effective policy nudges,” he says.
However, this social expectation didn’t affect everyone; around 25 per cent of people followed the rule regardless of what they thought others would do or think, while also knowing that breaking the rule would hurt no one apart from themselves, by resulting in a smaller reward. This was the most important finding, says Gaechter: “That’s showing an intrinsic respect for rules. You give these people a rule and they follow it unconditionally.”
“A surprisingly large number of people will follow rules even when those rules are arbitrary, costly to follow, unenforced and not widely followed by others,” says Desmet. Still, he cautions that this finding may not straightforwardly translate to the real world – other studies show the more demanding a rule, the less likely it is to be followed, for instance.
In another part of the experiment, those taking part in the study observed how other participants behaved. Seeing others following the rule didn’t significantly alter their behaviour. However, observing others violate the rule made a modest impression, nudging a small number to do the same.
This mirrors some observations in psychologist Stanley Milgram’s controversial obedience experiments in the 1960s. He showed that many people would readily administer what they thought were painful electric shocks to others when instructed by an authority figure – unless they saw someone else disobey. In that case, obedience reduced from 65 per cent to 10 per cent.
Further variations of Gaechter’s experiment introduced extrinsic penalties, for instance, stating that rule-breaking would be caught 90 per cent of the time, leading to no reward at all. This change increased compliance to about 78 per cent. Taken together, the results suggest that while extrinsic rewards increase conformity, a substantial part of compliance stems from social expectations, and, for many people, an internalised commitment to rule-following.
Gaechter says that economists have historically focused on incentivising rules as a primary driver of promoting compliance. But he argues that this overlooks the fact that many follow rules simply because they believe rules are there to be followed. Depending on the context, that intrinsic motivation could be beneficial or could perpetuate harmful actions. “It shows that when you’re designing laws, it’s not just a simple cost versus benefit calculation; it’s more interesting than that,” says Gaechter.
Desmet thinks that there are clear implications for policy-makers, as the experiments show that even unenforced or largely symbolic rules have a powerful impact on behaviour: “Law speaks to society, influencing conduct not just through the threat of punishment but by expressing shared norms and expectations.”
But whether anyone will listen remains to be seen, says Alex Haslam at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. While some policy-makers may be responsive to using the results to aid in law-making, not everyone will be led by research. “There are policy-makers who don’t pay much heed to these things,” he says.
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