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Incentives have surprisingly inconsistent effects when it comes toencouraging people to behave prosocially. Classical economic theory, accordingto which a specific behavior becomes more prevalent when it is rewarded,struggles to explain why incentives sometimes backfire. More recent theoriestherefore posit a reputational cost offsetting the benefits of receiving anincentive -- yet unexplained effects of incentives remain, for instance acrossincentive types and countries. We propose that social norms can offer anexplanation for these inconsistencies. Ultimately, social norms determine thereputational costs or benefits resulting from a given behavior, and thusvariation in the effect of incentives may reflect variation in norms. Weimplemented a formal model of prosocial behavior integrating social norms,which we empirically tested on the real-world prosocial behavior of blooddonation. Blood donation is essential for many life-saving medical procedures,but also presents an ideal testing ground for our theory: Various incentivepolicies for blood donors exist across countries, enabling a comparativeapproach. Our preregistered analyses reveal that social norms can indeedaccount for the varying effects of financial and time incentives onindividual-level blood donation behavior across 28 European countries.Incentives are associated with higher levels of prosociality when normsregarding the incentive are more positive. The results indicate that socialnorms play an important role in explaining the relationship between incentivesand prosocial behavior. More generally, our approach highlights the potentialof integrating theory from across the economic and behavioral sciences togenerate novel insights, with tangible consequences for policy-making.

Social Norms Offer Explanation for Inconsistent Effects of Incentives on Prosocial Behavior