This Norms and Behavioral Change Talk happened on Thursday, September 17th, 2026 at 1:00pm EST with Dr. Catherine Molho of The Toulouse School of Economics!
Abstract: Prosocial behavior toward strangers is considered a cornerstone of thriving civic societies and well-functioning institutions. Different channels to such prosociality have been identified, one rooted in self-image concerns and internalized norms, the other in social-image concerns and reputation. Prior cross-national research on prosociality has largely relied on tasks which fail to separate these drivers. Here, we tested these two channels directly in a pre-registered behavioral experiment with 7,978 participants in 20 culturally diverse nations. We administered dictator games and experimentally manipulated self-image concerns, by varying information about the consequences of participants' decisions for others (full versus avoidable), and social-image concerns by varying observability (public versus private). Across nations, giving increased substantially when individuals received information by default compared to when they could avoid it, and this responsiveness to information was stronger among guilt-prone individuals. In contrast, making decisions observable by third parties had only negligible effects on prosociality in our experiment. These results highlight self-image as a cross-culturally general driver of prosociality toward strangers.
Prior to the talk, ECR speaker, Moath Hussien from the University of Konstanz will also give a short presentation titled 'The Normative Limits of Peer Punishment'.
Abstract: Punishment is a powerful but risky tool for regulating human social behavior. While it can deter free riding, it is costly, frequently misdirected, and prone to escalation, raising the question of how societies harness its benefits without undermining cooperation. Here we show that peer punishment is governed by a small set of widely shared normative principles. Across diverse situations, people agree that cooperators should be protected from punishment and that punishment is appropriate only when imposed by legitimate enforcers or directed at illegitimate punishers. Being punished typically increases the perceived appropriateness of punishing in return, but not to the point of legitimizing retaliation by defectors. At the same time, expectations that non-cooperators ought to be punished are constrained by more fundamental principles, rendering second-order punishment inappropriate. Notably, even individuals who disagree about the social appropriateness of free riding share the same punishment norms. Together, these principles reveal that punishment norms are shaped less by enforcement logic than by constraints, helping to explain how societies harness punishment benefits without undermining cooperation.
