Influence of Social Norm, a tool for controlling consumer behavior in context of Populist Policies

Abstract

            Social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society. Obviously, the understandings is one of the many factors determining consumer behavior, therefore, this research aims to search an answer “How social norms affect consumer behavior when price is zero?”. This project uses experiment as method to figure out the question. At NIDA’s cafeteria, participants can take free goods as many as they want; however, the participants are divided into 2 groups; the first group operates in front of people while the latter group is out of sight. Not surprisingly, the first group takes the free goods significantly less than the second group because they confront many people, then, they must keep their image that they is a kind person (take a few free goods for other persons will have more free goods) when the second group only themselves know how much they take. Control variables that statistic significant are sexual, women takes more free goods than men and age, the more they live, the more they take.