The sound of silence: The importance of bystander support for confronters in the prevention of norm erosion

Author:

Tirion Anna S. C.1ORCID,Mulder Laetitia B.2,Kurz Tim3,Koudenburg Namkje4,Prosser Annayah M. B.15,Bain Paul1,Bolderdijk Jan Willem67

Affiliation:

1. Department of Psychology University of Bath Bath UK

2. Department of Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Economics and Business University of Groningen Groningen The Netherlands

3. School of Psychological Science University of Western Australia Perth Western Australia Australia

4. Department of Psychology University of Groningen Groningen The Netherlands

5. School of Management University of Bath Bath UK

6. Amsterdam Business School Amsterdam The Netherlands

7. Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics University of Groningen Groningen The Netherlands

Abstract

AbstractObserving deviant behaviour can lead to ‘norm erosion’, where a norm is no longer seen as relevant and compliance with it is reduced. Previous research argues that social confrontations can mitigate norm erosion. However, this work has not considered the impact of bystanders to confrontations, who might influence the outcome by supporting—or failing to support—the person confronting a social rule breaker. We examine the effect of bystanders' reactions on preventing norm erosion across three experimental studies. We examined how supportive and non‐supportive bystander reactions to a confronter impacted the perceived strength of a prosocial norm among participants and their behavioural intentions. We find that when bystanders explicitly supported the confronter against the rule breaker, the norm was perceived as stronger—and sometimes, compliance intentions were higher—than when bystanders did not respond to the confronter. A mini meta‐analysis across the three studies reveals that the effect of bystander support on perceived norm strength is large and robust. Our work demonstrates that for the prevention of norm erosion, confrontations benefit greatly from being explicitly supported by bystanders.

Publisher

Wiley

Subject

Social Psychology

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