Doctoral Student Awards for

Some of the most important questions in the area of decision making under uncertainty deal with individual decisions to conform to or violate norms of behavior. The decision to conform to a norm is complicated by uncertainty about the norms others hold (Bohnet and Zeckhauser, 2004) and strong inclinations to behave collectively Milgram (1977). (For the present purpose, we adopt the broad definition of norms as shared standards of behavior (Thibaut and Kelly, 1959)). This project proposal is part of dissertation research into the generalized conditions that lead to adherence to norms across different norms and contexts. This is a crucial matter because several challenging social concerns, not least matters of crime, consumption of natural resources, and interdependent security, may partly be resolved by promoting conformity to deliberately chosen norms. Identifying and comparing the motivations for adherence to norms is consequently an open and growing focus of