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dc.titleThe Central Role of Social Dynamics in Nudging Social Norms for Collective Health (Discussion Paper)
dc.contributor.authorMartínez Villarreal, Déborah
dc.contributor.authorRojas Méndez, Ana María
dc.contributor.authorScartascini, Carlos
dc.contributor.authorSimpser, Alberto
dc.contributor.orgunitDepartment of Research and Chief Economist
dc.coverageColombia
dc.date.available2023-04-05T00:04:00
dc.date.issue2023-04-05T00:04:00
dc.description.abstract“Norms-nudging” consists of publicizing how others in society behave on average, hoping to encourage further adoption of a desired behavior. While numerous studies show that norms nudges can work in small groups and one-shot interventions, increasing attention is being devoted to the challenges of scaling up to ongoing, population-level norms nudging policies. Regularly nudging entire populations, we argue, can unleash social adjustment dynamics that move the societal rate of the desired behavior in unexpected directions. We provide practical guidance on the kind of information needed to estimate the likely effectiveness of an ongoing, population-level norm nudging policy. We illustrate our approach through a survey-in-the-field experiment about face mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context we study, our results suggest that publicizing initially high rates of mask-wearing would likely backfire by leading to lower equilibrium rates of mask-wearing. Our approach can be adapted and enriched to estimate the likely effects of nudging with norms at scale in other substantive realms and heterogeneous populations.
dc.format.extent41
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0004828
dc.identifier.urlhttps://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/The-Central-Role-of-Social-Dynamics-in-Nudging-Social-Norms-for-Collective-Health.pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherInter-American Development Bank
dc.subjectBehavioral Economics
dc.subjectNudge
dc.subjectSocial Norm
dc.subjectRating
dc.subjectCoronavirus
dc.subjectPandemics
dc.subjectLearning
dc.subjectTax Compliance
dc.subjectHealth
dc.subjectPopulation Aging
dc.subject.jelcodeD03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
dc.subject.jelcodeD91 - Intertemporal Household Choice • Life Cycle Models and Saving
dc.subject.jelcodeI12 - Health Behavior
dc.subject.jelcodeI18 - Government Policy • Regulation • Public Health
dc.typeDiscussion Papers
idb.identifier.pubnumberIDB-DP-01003
idb.operationRG-K1199
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