What noise matters? experimental evidence for stochastic deviations in social norms

Abstract

Social norms interventions are increasingly used in applied policy-making such as to end female genital mutilation or open defecation. Amongst the reasons for why policy-makers rely on social norms intervention tools is that the relevant underlying theory, which is concerned with dynamic-stochastic deviations processes, has matured substantially over the past three decades. In this article, turning to behavioral evidence, we investigate which of the models proposed in this strand of theory are supported regarding individual human beha Show more