Bicchieri, Cristina
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Psychology
Social and Behavioral Sciences
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Phase 2 Project Report. Social Networks and Norms: Sanitation in Bihar and Tamil Nadu, India
Sector Sustainability Check: Rural Open Defecation Free (ODF) & Rural (Drinking) Water Supply Schemes (RWSS) Punjab & Sindh Provinces
This study focused on the behavioral sustainability of latrine use and continued functionality of rural water supply systems in ODF certified villages in the Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan. Our chief role was to develop, integrate and analyze social norms measures as part of the larger sustainability check. This report presents those methods, measures and findings. PennSONG served as an associate partner in the report, working with lead partner AAN Associates (www.aanassociates.com) and associate partner Institute of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (iese.nuse.edu.pk). The study was substantially supported by the Ministry of Climate Change (MOCC), the Government of Pakistan, and UNICEF Pakistan.
I Cannot Cheat On You After We Talk
The experimental literature on social dilemmas has long documented the positive effect of communication on cooperation. Sally (1995), in a meta-analysis spanning thirty-five years of Prisoner's Dilemma experiments, shows that the possibility of communicating significantly increases cooperation. Social psychologists have explained such a finding by hypothesizing that the act of communicating contributes to promoting trust by creating empathy among participants (see Loomis (1959), Desforges et al. (1991), Davis and Perkowitz (1979)). Bicchieri (2002, 2006), in a different perspective, puts forward a focusing function of communication hypothesis, according to which communication can focus agents on shared rules of behavior and - when it does focus them on pro-social ones - generates a normative environment which is conducive to cooperation. More specifically, when individuals face an unfamiliar situation, they need cues to under-stand how best to act and, for this reason, they check whether some behavioral rule they are aware of applies to the specific interaction. The effect of communication is to make a behavioral rule situational/y salient, that is, communication causes a shift in an individual's focus towards the strategies dictated by the now-salient rule. In doing so, communication also coordinates players' mutual expectations about which strategies will be chosen by the parties. In other words, (under some conditions) communication elicits social norms.
Phase 1 Project Report. Social Networks and Norms: Sanitation in Bihar and Tamil Nadu, India
Norm Manipulation, Norm Evasion: Experimental Evidence
Using an economic bargaining game, we tested for the existence of two phenomena related to social norms, namely norm manipulation – the selection of an interpretation of the norm that best suits an individual – and norm evasion – the deliberate, private violation of a social norm. We found that the manipulation of a norm of fairness was characterized by a self-serving bias in beliefs about what constituted normatively acceptable behaviour, so that an individual who made an uneven bargaining offer not only genuinely believed it was fair, but also believed that recipients found it fair, even though recipients of the offer considered it to be unfair. In contrast, norm evasion operated as a highly explicit process. When they could do so without the recipient's knowledge, individuals made uneven offers despite knowing that their behaviour was unfair.
A Structured Approach to a Diagnostic of Collective Practices
“How social norms change” is not only a theoretical question but also an empirical one. Many organizations have implemented programs to abandon harmful social norms. These programs are standardly monitored and evaluated with a set of empirical tools. While monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of changes in objective outcomes and behaviors is well developed, we will argue that M&E of changes in the wide range of beliefs and preferences important to social norms is still problematic. In this paper, we first present a theoretical framework and then show how it should guide social norms measurement. As a case study, we focus on the harmful practice of child marriage. We show how an operational theory of social norms can guide the design of surveys, experiments, and vignettes. We use examples from existing research to illustrate how to study social norms change.
Is Participation Contagious? Evidence From a Household Vector Control Campaign in Urban Peru
Objective: High rates of household participation are critical to the success of door-to-door vector control campaigns. We used the Health Belief Model to assess determinants of participation, including neighbour participation as a cue to action, in a Chagas disease vector control campaign in Peru. Methods: We evaluated clustering of participation among neighbours; estimated participation as a function of household infestation status, neighbourhood type and number of participating neighbours; and described the reported reasons for refusal to participate in a district of 2911 households. Results: We observed significant clustering of participation along city blocks (p<0.0001). Participation was significantly higher for households in new versus established neighbourhoods, for infested households, and for households with more participating neighbours. The effect of neighbour participation was greater in new neighbourhoods. Conclusions: Results support a ‘contagion’ model of participation, highlighting the possibility that one or two participating households can tip a block towards full participation. Future campaigns can leverage these findings by making participation more visible, by addressing stigma associated with spraying, and by employing group incentives to spray.
Diagnosing Norms
This short book explores how social norms work, and how changing them--changing preferences, beliefs, and especially social expectations--can potentially improve lives all around the world.
Shrieking Sirens - Schemata, Scripts, and Social Norms: How Change Occurs
This paper investigates the causal relationships among scripts, schemata, and social norms. The authors examine how social norms are triggered by particular schemata and are grounded in scripts. Just as schemata are embedded in a network, so too are social norms, and they can be primed through spreading activation. Moreover, the expectations that allow a social norm‘s existence are inherently grounded in particular scripts and schemata. Using interventions that have targeted gender norms, open defecation, female genital cutting, and other collective issues as examples, the authors argue that ignoring the cognitive underpinnings of a social norm doom interventions to failure.