IBSS: The Influence of Short-Term Financial Incentives on Social Norms and Behaviors

这一跨学科研究项目的重点是短期货币激励对社会制度和长期行为的影响。在许多国家，有一种以激励为基础的计划，以促进环境保护、疫苗接种、上学和其他社会合意的行为，但大多数这样的计划是由政府或捐助者资助的，预算取决于政治进程和资金的可用性。这使得他们很容易被淘汰，这引发了一个问题，那就是之后的行为会发生什么。推动这类项目设计的经济模型不能很好地解决这个问题。一些证据表明，经济激励可能会破坏或“排挤”来自社会规范的其他动机来源，但人们对其中的原因知之甚少。虽然传播学有可能解释社会规范和其他心理社会因素对行为的影响，但它没有纳入货币支付的影响。这个项目将整合经济模型和社会规范影响的理论来解释和预测货币激励如何影响社会规范和行为。研究人员将把他们的工作基地设在青海省南部青藏高原的三江源地区。他们将利用与研究对象的访谈和调查来制定社会规范和相关变量的文化具体量化衡量标准。他们将进行一系列现场实验，以测试沟通、货币激励、社会规范和行为之间的因果联系，他们将转化理论和实证结果，为研究地区和其他地区基于激励的环境保护计划的设计提供可能的政策修改。该项目将提供新的信息和见解，通过更好地了解其影响，促进基于激励的环境保护计划的设计，并帮助改进基于激励的环境保护计划的设计。通过整合经济学理论和传播理论的元素，研究人员将提高社会对经济激励和社会规范如何相互作用以影响行为的理解。初步实验的结果表明，结合经济学和传播学理论的结构在解释和预测行为方面具有优势。这个项目有可能解释、预测和克服货币激励的动机挤出效应。该研究地区为解决研究假设提供了一个令人信服的社会、生态和政治系统，因为藏族人民中存在着强烈的保护伦理，而且可能会引入大规模的生态系统服务付费计划。通过帮助项目经理和政策制定者了解排挤动机是如何运作的，该项目将有助于使下一代基于环境激励的社会项目更加有效。该项目通过NSF跨学科行为和社会科学研究(IBSS)竞赛得到支持。

This interdisciplinary research project focuses on the effects of short-term monetary incentives on social systems and on longer-term behavior. In many nations, there is a movement towards incentive-based programs to promote environmental conservation, vaccination, school attendance, and other socially desirable behaviors, but most such programs are government-or donor-funded, with budgets subject to political processes and availability of funds. This makes them vulnerable to elimination, raising the question of what will happen to behaviors afterward. Economic models that drive the design of such programs are ill-equipped to address this question. Some evidence suggests that financial incentives can undermine or "crowd out" other sources of motivation derived from social norms, but the reasons are poorly understood. Although communication science has the potential to explain the effects of social norms and other psycho-social factors on behaviors, it has not incorporated the effects of monetary payments. This project will integrate economic models and theories of the influence of social norm to explain and predict the ways in which monetary incentives influence social norms and behaviors. The researchers will base their work in Sanjiangyuan, a Chinese region in southern Qinghai Province on the Tibetan Plateau. They will use interviews and surveys with research subjects to develop culturally specific quantitative measures of social norms and related variables. They will conduct a series of field experiments to test the causal linkages posited among communication, monetary incentives, social norms, and behaviors, and they will translate theoretical and empirical results to offer possible policy modifications for the design of incentive-based environmental conservation programs in the study region and elsewhere.This project will provide new information and insights that will advance basic knowledge and help improve the design of incentive-based environmental conservation programs through a better understanding of their effects. By integrating elements of economic theory and communication theory, the researchers will improve societal understanding of how financial incentives and social norms interact to influence behavior. Results from preliminary experiments demonstrate the advantages of incorporating constructs from both economic and communication theories in explaining and predicting behavior. This project has the potential to explain, predict, and overcome the motivation crowding out effects of monetary incentives. The study region provides a compelling social, ecological, and political system for addressing the study hypotheses because of a strong existing conservation ethic among the Tibetan people and the potential introduction of a large-scale payment-for-ecosystem-services program. By helping project managers and policy makers understand how motivation crowding out operates, this project will help make the next generation of environmental incentive-based social programs be more effective. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.