Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance
Recent research suggests that many norms may be upheld by closet deviants who engage in enforcement so as to hide their deviance. But various empirical accounts indicate that audiences are often quite sensitive to this ulterior motive. Our theory and experimental evidence identify when inferences of...
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| Format: | Article |
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Society for Sociological Science
2019
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120761 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3441-2938 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6271-0708 |
| _version_ | 1811069231766175744 |
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| author | Kim, Minjae Zuckerman Sivan, Ezra W |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Kim, Minjae Zuckerman Sivan, Ezra W |
| author_sort | Kim, Minjae |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Recent research suggests that many norms may be upheld by closet deviants who engage in enforcement so as to hide their deviance. But various empirical accounts indicate that audiences are often quite sensitive to this ulterior motive. Our theory and experimental evidence identify when inferences of ulterior motive are drawn and clarify the implications of such inferences. Our main test pivots on two contextual factors: (1) the extent to which individuals might try to strategically feign commitment and (2) the contrast between "mandated" enforcement, where individuals are asked for their opinions of deviance, and "entrepreneurial" enforcement, where enforcement requires initiative to interrupt the flow of social interaction. When the context is one where individuals might have a strategic motive and enforcement requires entrepreneurial initiative, suspicions are aroused because the enforcers could have remained silent and enjoyed plausible deniability that they had witnessed the deviance or recognized its significance. Given that the mandate for enforcement might be rare, a key implication is that norms might frequently be underenforced. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:07:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/120761 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:07:48Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Society for Sociological Science |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1207612022-09-30T07:45:02Z Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance Kim, Minjae Zuckerman Sivan, Ezra W Sloan School of Management Kim, Minjae Zuckerman Sivan, Ezra W Recent research suggests that many norms may be upheld by closet deviants who engage in enforcement so as to hide their deviance. But various empirical accounts indicate that audiences are often quite sensitive to this ulterior motive. Our theory and experimental evidence identify when inferences of ulterior motive are drawn and clarify the implications of such inferences. Our main test pivots on two contextual factors: (1) the extent to which individuals might try to strategically feign commitment and (2) the contrast between "mandated" enforcement, where individuals are asked for their opinions of deviance, and "entrepreneurial" enforcement, where enforcement requires initiative to interrupt the flow of social interaction. When the context is one where individuals might have a strategic motive and enforcement requires entrepreneurial initiative, suspicions are aroused because the enforcers could have remained silent and enjoyed plausible deniability that they had witnessed the deviance or recognized its significance. Given that the mandate for enforcement might be rare, a key implication is that norms might frequently be underenforced. 2019-03-06T18:22:40Z 2019-03-06T18:22:40Z 2017-10 2017-07 2019-03-06T17:34:43Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 23306696 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120761 Kim, Minjae, and Ezra Zuckerman Sivan. “Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance.” Sociological Science 4 (2017): 580–610. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3441-2938 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6271-0708 http://dx.doi.org/10.15195/V4.A24 Sociological Science Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Society for Sociological Science Sociological Science |
| spellingShingle | Kim, Minjae Zuckerman Sivan, Ezra W Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance |
| title | Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance |
| title_full | Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance |
| title_fullStr | Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance |
| title_short | Faking It Is Hard to Do: Entrepreneurial Norm Enforcement and Suspicions of Deviance |
| title_sort | faking it is hard to do entrepreneurial norm enforcement and suspicions of deviance |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120761 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3441-2938 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6271-0708 |
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