Séminaire GREDEG : Andrea GUIDO (Burgundy School of Business - LESSAC, Dijon)

Andrea GUIDO, Associate professor of Behavioral Economics at the Burgundy School of Business and lab manager of the LESSAC, Dijon.

Title:

Social Norm Change Across the Globe Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract:
The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Did social norms also change? We study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, handwashing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from more than 30,000 respondents in 43 countries recorded recently before and recently after the emergence of COVID-19. Exploiting variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms promoting changes in social norm measures. We find that COVID-19 strengthened hand washing norms, did not change most other norms, and, surprisingly, slightly decreased tightness. Thus, at least in the short term, it seems the cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms that are directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat.