Social Norms Offer Explanation for Inconsistent Effects of Incentives on Prosocial Behavior

Incentives have surprisingly inconsistent effects when it comes to encouraging people to behave prosocially. Classical economic theory, according to which a specific behavior becomes more prevalent when it is rewarded, struggles to explain why incentives sometimes backfire. More recent theories therefore posit a reputational cost offsetting the benefits of receiving an incentive -- yet unexplained effects of incentives remain, for instance across incentive types and countries. We propose that so...