DYnamics of SOcial NOrms under collective Risk - Funded under the PRIN PROGETTI DI RICERCA DI RILEVANTE INTERESSE NAZIONALE – (2022-2024)

The DYNOSOR project aims to understand how and when social norms can promote sustainable cooperative behavior to deal with collective risks of climate change. Human activities involving the emission of greenhouse gasses have had substantial impacts on the earth’s climate and ecosystems. As the earth is warming, human activities may potentially trigger irreversible changes that could be catastrophic for the well-being of the species on this planet. Managing these global threats requires collective behavioral changes, wherein each individual’s action makes a difference. This implies solving a collective risk dilemma: individuals should make efforts not to realize a personal gain but to avoid a collective loss. Avoiding this cost is individually costly yet socially beneficial, inviting freeriding strategies where people may decide to rely on other people’s investments, if any.

The key question is: How could people be individually motivated to cooperate (i.e., behave sustainably) to reduce the risk of a collective loss? DYNOSOR posits that social norms can play a crucial role. Social norms motivate people to engage in actions that are individually costly but socially beneficial. In situations of risk of uncertainty, the strength of social norms themselves is affected by the severity and perception of risk. When this changes over time, so too may the strength of norms guiding cooperative behavior—potentially resulting in norms becoming ineffective or even hindering cooperative solutions. DYNOSOR looks for the existence of regimes —referred to as sweet spots—within which norms are sufficiently stable over time, but also flexible enough to change to be effective solutions for collective action problems. Under what conditions can sweet spots for social norms be reached and maintained? Locating sweet spots for social norms allows us to identify the cases when social norms are effective solutions to deal with collective risks.

DYNOSOR comprises two research units. ISTC/CNR (coordinator) includes expertise in theoretical and experimental research on social norms and agent-based modeling and simulation (Giulia Andrighetto and Eva Vriens). UNIBO includes expertise in laboratory experimental research, survey-based data analysis experiments, social norms, and theoretical modeling (Alice Guerra).

For any further information, please contact:

Giulia Andrighetto: giulia.andrighetto@gmail.com Eva Vriens: eva.vriens@istc.cnr.it