scholarly journals Testing local descriptive norms and salience of enforcement action: A field experiment to increase tax collection

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Larkin ◽  
Michael Sanders ◽  
Isabelle Andresen ◽  
Felicity Algate
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Tax Compliance ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Descriptive Norm ◽  
Conditional Cooperation ◽  
Enforcement Action ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social

The use of behavioral science interventions, and particularly social norms, in tax compliance is a growing industry for scholars and practitioners alike in recent years. However, the causal mechanism of these interventions is unknown, where effects could be explained by a pro-social desire to support one’s community, conditional cooperation, desire to conform, or fear of reprisals. We conduct a field experiment in local government taxation in the United Kingdom which tests the effectiveness of a social (descriptive) norm against a control condition and against messages that highlight the enforcement process. The social norm outperforms enforcement salience, suggesting that this explanation, although more powerful than the control, does not fully explain compliance effects. This study further provides evidence that social norm type interventions can be effective at the subnational level, a context where previous work has shown they may produce null effects.

Changing the Social Norm of Tax Compliance by Voting

Kyklos ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Alm ◽  
Gary H. McClelland ◽  
William D. Schulze
Keyword(s):  
Social Norm ◽  
Tax Compliance ◽  
The Social

Explaining the decline of tipping norms in the gig economy

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-245
Author(s):  
Erik P. Duhaime ◽  
Zachary W. Woessner
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Food Delivery ◽  
Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽  
Fixed Amount ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Worker Autonomy

Purpose Advances in information technology have enabled new ways of organizing work and led to a proliferation of what is known as the “gig economy.” While much attention has been paid to how these new organizational designs have upended traditional employee–employer relationships, there has been little consideration of how these changes have impacted the social norms and expectations that govern the relationship between workers and consumers. The purpose of this paper is to consider the social norm of tipping and propose that gig work is associated with a breakdown of tipping norms in part because of workers’ increased autonomy in terms of deciding when and whether to work. Design/methodology/approach The authors present four studies to support their hypothesis: a survey vignette experiment with workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk (Study 1), an analysis of New York City taxi data (Study 2), a field experiment with restaurant employee food delivery drivers (Study 3) and a field experiment with gig-worker food delivery drivers (Study 4). Findings In Studies 1 and 2, they find that consumers are less likely to tip when workers have autonomy in deciding whether to complete a task. In Study 3, they find that restaurant delivery employees notice upfront tips (or lack thereof) and alter their service as a result. In contrast, in Study 4, they find that gig-workers who agree to complete a delivery for a fixed amount that includes an upfront tip (or lack thereof) are not responsive to tips. Together, these findings suggest that the gig economy has not only transformed employee-employer relationships, but has also altered the norms and expectations of consumers and workers. Originality/value The authors present four different studies that consider the social norm of tipping in the context of gig work. Together, they highlight that perceptions of worker autonomy have driven the decline in tipping norms associated with gig work.

Changing the Social Norm of Tax Compliance by Voting

Kyklos ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Alm ◽  
Gary H. McClelland ◽  
William D. Schulze
Keyword(s):  
Social Norm ◽  
Tax Compliance ◽  
The Social

Disability and Work in South Asia and the United Kingdom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Buckingham
Keyword(s):  
Low Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Low Socioeconomic ◽  
Disability History ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Indian Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western View

Historical analyses, as well as more contemporary examples of disability and work, show that the experience of disability is always culturally and historically mediated, but that class—in the sense of economic status—plays a major role in the way impairment is experienced as disabling. Although there is little published on disability history in India, the history of the Indian experience of caste disability demonstrates the centrality of work in the social and economic expression of stigma and marginalization. An Indian perspective supports the challenge to the dominant Western view that modern concepts of disability have their origins in the Industrial Revolution. Linkage between disability, incapacity to work, and low socioeconomic status are evident in India, which did not undergo the workplace changes associated with industrialization in the West.

An Introduction to Statistical Models for Networks

2020 ◽  
pp. 218-233
Author(s):  
Valentina Kuskova ◽  
Stanley Wasserman
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
Exponential Family ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Uniform Distributions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Special Cases ◽  
Social And Behavioral Science ◽  
Network Methods

Network theoretical and analytic approaches have reached a new level of sophistication in this decade, accompanied by a rapid growth of interest in adopting these approaches in social science research generally. Of course, much social and behavioral science focuses on individuals, but there are often situations where the social environment—the social system—affects individual responses. In these circumstances, to treat individuals as isolated social atoms, a necessary assumption for the application of standard statistical analysis is simply incorrect. Network methods should be part of the theoretical and analytic arsenal available to sociologists. Our focus here will be on the exponential family of random graph distributions, p*, because of its inclusiveness. It includes conditional uniform distributions as special cases.

Can Humanism be the Social Norm?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon D. Welch
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
The Social

Assaults on truth and divisions about the nature of wise governance are not momentary political challenges, unique to particular moments in history. Rather, they demonstrate fundamental weaknesses in human reasoning and core dangers in ways of construing both individual freedom and cohesive communities. It will remain an ongoing challenge to learn to deal rationally with what is an intrinsic irrationality in human cognition and with what is an intrinsic tendency toward domination and violence in human collectivities. In times of intense social divisions, it is vital to consider the ways in which humanism might function as the social norm by, paradoxically, functioning in a way different from other social norms. Humanism is not the declaration that a certain set of values or norms are universally valid. At its best and most creative, humanism is not limited to a particular set of norms, but is, rather, the commitment to a certain process in which norms are continuously created, critically evaluated, implemented, sustained or revised. Humanism is a process of connection, perception, implementation, and critique, and it applies this process as much to itself as to other traditions.

scholarly journals Social validity of a contextual behavioral science-based intervention for retirement education

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Martins Barbosa ◽  
Sheila Giardini Murta
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Social Validity ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Acceptance And Commitment ◽  
Dynamic Methods ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group 3 ◽  
Group 2 ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Contextual Behavioral Science

AbstractThe literature shows that retirement can bring both positive and negative effects. However, there are few tested interventions for preparing workers for this transition and avoiding or minimizing its negative impacts. This paper presents a study with multiple groups that examined the social validity of an intervention for retirement education grounded in contextual behavioral science and acceptance and commitment therapy. Twenty-seven workers aged 29 to 65 divided into three intervention groups participated (group 1, N = 15; group 2, N = 9; group 3, N = 3). According to the participants’ evaluations, the intervention provided socially valid goals, socially acceptable procedures, and socially important effects. However, some improvements are still needed, such as the use of more dynamic methods, better formatted printed material, and increased fidelity between the content’s implementation and the prescribed activities. The positive results indicate that contextual behavioral science may bolster the development of interventions whose components possess evidence for their social validity. The further evaluation of the intervention via a clinical trial study will offer more robust evidence for its effectiveness. It is hoped that by increasing the availability of theory-based interventions in this area, the present study will promote valid strategies to facilitate better adjustment to retirement.

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