What Determines the Willingness to Sanction Violations of Newly Introduced Social Norms: Personality Traits or Economic Preferences? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract Social norms govern human behavior and usually change slowly over time. While individuals’ willingness to sanction others is decisive for the enforcement of social norms and thus social stability, little is known about individual sanctioning behavior related to newly introduced social norms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have used various tools to rapidly and actively introduce the new norm of wearing a face mask; this offers a unique setting to study the determinants of individuals’ willingness to sanction a cooperation norm. In a nationwide online survey in Germany, we find that higher levels of conscientiousness and neuroticism, but none of the economic preferences (time and risk), are significantly and robustly associated with a higher willingness to sanctioning norm violators. Furthermore, there is a strong relationship between supervisors’ and their subordinates’ willingness to sanction norm violation, and we observe that females have a higher value for the appropriate fine for norm violating behavior than men. Our results shed light on the origins of individual compliance with newly introduced public policy measures that are meant to increase solidarity via the explicit shaping of new cooperation norms.