Abstract
A large extent of undetected norm violations may have positive effects for society. If many norm violations are hidden, society seems to be in good order so that actors are more willing to comply with the norms themselves. In this sense, ignorance promotes norm compliance. We challenge this view by arguing that in scenarios, in which norms are controlled and enforced by third parties who receive rewards for their success, the opposite is true: Ignorance promotes norm violations. The reason is that unsuspicious inspectors who believe that little hidden norm violations are committed will spend less effort for detection, some formerly detected norm violations will go undetected, norm targets will be less deterred from the lower detection probability and will commit more norm violations over time. This article develops a respective mathematical model and confirms the above described intuition.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allport FH (1924) Social psychology. Houghton-Mifflin, Boston
Andreoni J, Erard B, Feinstein J (1998) Tax compliance. J Econ Lit 36(2):818–860
Banerjee AV (1992) A simple model of herd behavior. Q J Econ 107(3):797–817
Bendor J, Mookherjee D (1987) Institutional structure and the logic of ongoing collective action. Am Polit Sci Rev 81(1):129–154
Bicchieri C, Fukui Y (1999) The great illusion: ignorance, informational cascades, and the persistence of unpopular norms. Bus Ethics Q 9(1):127–155
Bikhchandani S, Hirshleifer D, Welch I (1992) A theory of fads, fashion, custom, and cultural-change as informational cascades. J Polit Econ 100(5):992–1026
Brissonneau C, Depiesse F (2006) Doping and doping control in French sport. In: Spitzer G (ed), Doping and doping control in Europe. Meyer & Meyer Sport, Aachen, pp 145–167
Centola D, Willer R, Macy M (2005) The emperor’s dilemma: a computational model of self-enforcing norms. Am J Soc 110(4):1009–1040
Cohen S (1985) Visions of social control: crime, punishment, and classification. Polity Press, Blackwell
Diekmann A, Preisendörfer P (2003) The behavioral effects of environmental attitudes in low-cost and high-cost situations. Ration Soc 15(4):441–472
Elaydi SN (1996) An introduction to difference equations. Springer, New York
Elffers H, Weigel RH, Hessing DJ (1987) The consequences of different strategies for measuring tax evasion behavior. J Econ Psychol 8(3):311–337
Foucault M (1977) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Pantheon Books, New York
Franke W, Berendonk B (1997) Hormonal doping and androgenization of athletes: a secret program of the German Democratic Republic government. Clin Chem 43(7):1262–1279
Fudenberg D, Tirole J (1991) Game theory. MIT Press, Cambridge
Garland D (2001) The culture of control: crime and social order in late modernity. Clarendon, Oxford
Gintis H (2008) Punishment and cooperation. Science 319(5868):1345–1346
Harsanyi JC (1967–1968) Games with incomplete information played by Bayesian players, parts I–III. Manag Sci 14:159–182 320–334, 486–502
Herrmann B, Thoni C, Gächter S (2008) Antisocial punishment across societies. Science 319(5868):1362–1367
Hudson B (2002) Punishment and control. In: Maguire M, Morgan R, Reiner R (eds), The Oxford handbook of Criminology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 233–263
Kitts JA (2003) Egocentric bias or information management? Selective disclosure and the social roots of norm misperception. Soc Psychol Q 66(3):222–237
Kitts JA (2006) Collective action, rival incentives, and the emergence of antisocial norms. Am Soc Rev 71(2):235–259
Kitts JA (2008) Dynamics and stability of collective action norms. J Math Soc 32:142–163
Leonard J (2001) Doping in elite swimming: a case study of the modern era from 1970 forward. In: Wilson W, Derse E (eds), Doping in elite sport: the politics of drugs in the Olympic movement. Human Kinetics Publishers, Champaign, pp 225–239
Miller D, McFarland C (1987) Pluralistic ignorance: when similarity is interpreted as dissimilarity. J Personality Soc Psychol 53(2):298–305
Miller DT, Morrison KR (2009) Expressing deviant opinions: believing you are in the majority helps. J Exp Soc Psych 45(4):740–747
North DC (1986) The new institutional economics. J Inst Theor Econ 142:230–237
O’Gorman HJ (1986) The discovery of pluralistic ignorance: an ironic lesson. J Hist Behav Sci 22(4):333–347
Popitz H (1968) Über die Präventivwirkung des Nichtwissens: Dunkelziffer, Norm und Strafe. Mohr, Tübingen
Rauhut H (2009a) Higher punishment, less control? Experimental evidence on the inspection game. Ration Soc 21(3):359–392
Rauhut H (2009b) Stronger incentives for control reduce crime. A lab experiment on paradoxical effects of incentives and a game theoretical explanation. Mimeo ETH, Zürich
Rauhut H, Junker M (2009) Punishment deters crime because humans are bounded in their strategic decision-making. J Artif Soc Syst Soc 12(3)
Rauhut H, Krumpal I (2008) Die Durchsetzung sozialer Normen in Low-Cost und High-Cost Situationen. Z Soziol 5:380–402
Tsebelis G (1989) The abuse of probability in political analysis: the Robinson Crusoe fallacy. Am Polit Sci Rev 1:77–91
Tsebelis G (1990) Penalty has no impact on crime. A game theoretic analysis. Ration Soc 2:255–286
Willer R, Kuwabara K, Macy MW (2009) The false enforcement of unpopular norms’. Am J Sociol 115(2):451–490
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Groeber, P., Rauhut, H. Does ignorance promote norm compliance?. Comput Math Organ Theory 16, 1–28 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-009-9061-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-009-9061-7