When within- and outgroup norms conflict: A public good experiment with strategic ignorance of social norms

Social norm feedback, i.e. informing people about the behavior of others, has been shown to influence prosocial behavior in many domains, including tax compliance and energy conservation. We introduce social norm feedback in a public good setting and study the interplay between payoff-relevant within-group norms and payoff-irrelevant outgroup norms. We show that conflict between within- and outgroup norms dampens within-group conditional cooperation. Further, participants strategically ignore outgroup norms when these go against self-interest, instead consulting norm information that allows them reducing their contributions. On aggregate, such information acquisition/avoidance strategy favors exposition to norms that hastens the breakdown of cooperation. Finally, norm avoidance is higher when feedback is based on individual rather than group-level comparisons, which is consistent with a self-image
cost associated with social norm feedback.