From Extreme to Mainstream: The Erosion of Social Norms
- (pp. 3522-48)
Abstract
Social norms, usually persistent, can change quickly when new public information arrives, such as a surprising election outcome. People may become more inclined to express views or take actions previously perceived as stigmatized and may judge others less negatively for doing so. We examine this possibility using two experiments. We first show via revealed preference experiments that Donald Trump's rise in popularity and eventual victory increased individuals' willingness to publicly express xenophobic views. We then show that individuals are sanctioned less negatively if they publicly expressed a xenophobic view in an environment where that view is more popular.Citation
Bursztyn, Leonardo, Georgy Egorov, and Stefano Fiorin. 2020. "From Extreme to Mainstream: The Erosion of Social Norms." American Economic Review, 110 (11): 3522-48. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20171175Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D85 Network Formation and Analysis: Theory
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification