| Abstract: |
In Experimental Economics, coordination games are used to elicit social norms
as incentivized beliefs about others’ beliefs. Conversely, representative
surveys like the World Values Survey elicit social norms as personal attitudes
and values that are independent of others’ beliefs. Using a representative
survey of the Italian population (N = 1, 501), we compare the two ways of
measuring social norms with gender roles as a working example and find the
following results. At the aggregated level, appropriateness ratings obtained
under the two elicitation methods follow the same pattern but differ
significantly in magnitude, with the incentivized social norm elicitation
depicting a more conservative view on gender roles than the unincentivized
one. The analysis carried out at the individual level allows us to explain the
previous result. Most respondents report personal values as more progressive
than the perceived norm, which may be consistent with a desirability and/or a
self-image bias. This occurs irrespectively of whether respondents correctly
perceive the social norm or not. We conclude that analyses based on personal
values lead to a proxy of gender norms significantly more progressive than the
norms elicited in coordination games. |