Social punishment for breaching restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Ryo Takahashi; Kenta Tanaka

doi:10.1111/ecin.13020

Social punishment for breaching restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Ryo Takahashi^*, Kenta Tanaka

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Political Science and Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, the Japanese government requested the temporary closure of businesses. Consequently, complying with restrictions came to be recognized as the social norm, and stores that continued with business as usual were seen as norm-breakers. This study empirically investigates costly punishment behavior for stores' violation of restrictions and how this behavior changes when a decision-maker receives information pertaining to contrasting norms, implicitly requiring the opposite response. By implementing joy-of-destruction minigames, we found that costly punishment behavior for norm-breakers was significantly stimulated (by approximately 11%) but not increased when additional information was provided.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1467-1482
Number of pages	16
Journal	Economic Inquiry
Volume	59
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13020
Publication status	Published - 2021 Oct

Keywords

COVID-19
Japan
online randomized experiment
social norms

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Business,Management and Accounting
Economics and Econometrics

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10.1111/ecin.13020

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title = "Social punishment for breaching restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic",

abstract = "In response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, the Japanese government requested the temporary closure of businesses. Consequently, complying with restrictions came to be recognized as the social norm, and stores that continued with business as usual were seen as norm-breakers. This study empirically investigates costly punishment behavior for stores' violation of restrictions and how this behavior changes when a decision-maker receives information pertaining to contrasting norms, implicitly requiring the opposite response. By implementing joy-of-destruction minigames, we found that costly punishment behavior for norm-breakers was significantly stimulated (by approximately 11%) but not increased when additional information was provided.",

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author = "Ryo Takahashi and Kenta Tanaka",

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AB - In response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, the Japanese government requested the temporary closure of businesses. Consequently, complying with restrictions came to be recognized as the social norm, and stores that continued with business as usual were seen as norm-breakers. This study empirically investigates costly punishment behavior for stores' violation of restrictions and how this behavior changes when a decision-maker receives information pertaining to contrasting norms, implicitly requiring the opposite response. By implementing joy-of-destruction minigames, we found that costly punishment behavior for norm-breakers was significantly stimulated (by approximately 11%) but not increased when additional information was provided.

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KW - online randomized experiment

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Social punishment for breaching restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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