Experimental data: compliance and the power of authority 2012

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>The project will explore implications of the basic science for policy via a series of applied projects connecting naturally with the three themes. These will include: the determinants of consumer credit behaviour, the formation of social values, and strategies for evaluation of policies affecting health and safety. The research will integrate theoretical perspectives from multiple disciplines and utilize a wide range of complementary methodologies including: theoretical modeling of individuals, groups and complex systems, conceptual analysis; lab and field experiments and analysis of large data sets. The Network will promote high quality cross-disciplinary research and serve as a policy forum for understanding behaviour and behaviour change. We use an experiment to show that compliance to a cue by an authority is a powerful motivating mechanism. We do this in an experiment where there are direct orders or indirect cues to destroy half of another participant’s earnings at a cost to one’s own earnings. Depending on the experimental treatment, up to around 60-70% of participants decide to comply with the orders or cues being provided.<p>Project description:</p>This network project brings together economists, psychologists, computer and complexity scientists from three leading centres for behavioural social science at Nottigham, Warwick and UEA. This group will lead a research programme with two broad objectives: (1) to develop and test cross-disciplinary models of human behaviour and behaviour change and (2) to draw out their implications for the formulation and evaluation of public policy. Foundational research will focus on three inter-related themes: (1) understanding individual behaviour and behaviour change; (2) understanding social and interactive behaviour and (3) rethinking the foundations of policy analysis