Conformity to norms and rules can erode, at times with disastrous consequences. In organizations for example management may step by step get to act ever more opportunistically, eventually even ruining the jobs and pensions of their employees (such as happened in the Enron case). What mechanisms are behind this slippery slope process of norm erosion? According to the goal framing theory (Lindenberg and Steg, 2007) conformity to norms is mostly the result of people pursuing the goal to act appropriately. However, people can also pursue a hedonic goal directed at feeling better right now (making them extra sensitive to avoiding effort) or a gain goal directed at guarding and improving one's resources (making them extra sensitive to opportunities for gain). A weakening of the goal to act appropriately thus strengthens the hedonic or the gain goal. In this project, we investigate experimentally (in the lab and in the field) how goal-framing processes are likely to create such slippery slope phenomena.

Supervisors: Siegwart Lindenberg (RUG), Linda Steg (Psychology, RUG)