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An interdisciplinary explanation of rule-following in the absence or presence of incentives

Nature Human Behaviour volume 9, pages 1317–1318 (2025)Cite this article

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Why do people follow rules that they often have an incentive not to follow? Across four sets of experiments, we showed that respect for rules and conformity with social expectations are fundamental factors of rule-following that can explain why people follow laws and social norms even in the absence of incentives.

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Fig. 1: Rule-following through the lens of the CRISP framework.

References

  1. Gelfand, M. J. Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: Tight and Loose Cultures and the Secret Signals that Direct Our Lives (Robinson, London, 2020). This book provides many examples of rules and how they reflect 'tight' and 'loose' social norms.

  2. Bicchieri, C. The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005). This is seminal book discusses theory and evidence on the nature of social norms.

  3. Kliemt, H. Economic and sociological accounts of social norms. Anal. Krit. 42, 41 (2020). This article discusses explanations for rule-following in the social sciences and also highlights the importance of intrinsic respect for rules for social order in society.

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  4. Kimbrough, E. O. & Vostroknutov, A. Norms make preferences social. J. Eur. Econ. Assoc. 14, 608–638 (2016). This seminal paper introduces the rule-following task that we adapted, and also discusses the link between social norms and social preferences.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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This is a summary of: Gächter, S. et al. Why people follow rules. Nat. Hum. Behav. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02196-4 (2025).

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An interdisciplinary explanation of rule-following in the absence or presence of incentives. Nat Hum Behav 9, 1317–1318 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02197-3

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