King's College London

Researchers found that people who were encouraged to adhere to social norms subsequently displayed a greater willingness to contribute to efforts to seek accountability from decision-makers.

By contrast, those who were threatened with sanction for failing to comply with a desired behaviour were far less willing to contribute to seeking accountability.

The findings were revealed in the study, Compliance and Accountability-Seeking: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Argentina, co-authored by Dr Krzysztof Krakowski (King’s College London) and Dr Lucas Ronconi (Universidad de San Martín).

In the study, the researchers conducted a field experiment at metro-train stations located near Buenos Aires in which they attempted first to increase compliance in the rate of payment for train tickets.

To do so, researchers used two methods; either by highlighting the penalties for failing to pay the fare or attempting to appeal to people’s sense of collective responsibility and civic duty by emphasising that the vast majority of citizens paid to use the metro.

They then sought to measure the subjects’ subsequent investment in accountability-seeking by eliciting their willingness to sign a petition demanding quality public transportation service. The petition requested the enforcement of a law which requires officials to provide a minimum of transport services even during strikes. Subjects who decided to sign the petition had to provide their name and surname, which made their actions costly.

The study authors gathered data over an 11-week period, appearing at 62 train stations and observing more than 7,500 people.

The found that passengers threatened with sanction (43.7 per cent) were far more likely to pay their fare compared to a control group (31.5 per cent). Those who were encouraged to comply with their civic duty of paying their fare were also more likely to pay (36.9 per cent) than the control group.

However, researchers also found that appealing to a sense of civic duty made people much more likely to subsequently sign the petition than those in both the control group and those threatened with sanction.

They said: “Our findings suggest that raising compliance through appeals to norms may have wider societal benefits, compared to interventions inducing compliance through the threat of sanctions. These results are broadly consistent with the proposition that compliance-inducing interventions may have spillover effects to other domains of civic life.”

The researchers said the findings may have important implications for policy-makers who design institutions that promote compliance and aim at increasing citizens’ contributions to public goods.

The academics added: “Threatening citizens with sanctions may bring greater targeted results in the short run. Yet, appealing to social norms could have broader, long-tern dividends across various domains of civic behaviours.”