Final Activity Report Summary - PLIC (The Psychology of Legal Instrument Choices: An Experimental Approach to the Expressive Function of Labour Law)
During my fellowship, my goal was to broaden the research on the expressive function of law suggesting that there is a need to understand how people perceive the law and its different institutions and how that perception affects their attitudes and compliance to laws. When the policy makers choose a legal regime, they influence the way the people perceive the institutions and the forbidden acts.
In my main research project I focused on two important themes for which I conducted three consecutive waves of data collection. The first theme was the role of voice and representation in employees' choice of different institutions as legal instruments for employment relationships. I tried to understand where the state (courts, government and legislature) stands in the competition between unions and employers. I examined the relationship between voice and choice of legal instrument (e.g. does preferences for personal contract over union represent more or less need of voice), as well as strength of employees (demographic and subjective), (e.g. would stronger employees prefer personal contract in all issues?) I also examined what types of workers trust their employer, the union or the state (government, legislature and government) and in what legal domain. The second theme of my research was justice, solidarity and self-interest uncovering the motivation for employee's choice. I analysed how views about justice in the workplace interact with self-interest in choosing the preferred institution.
In another experiment with Tom Tyler, I investigated the perils and potential promise of mandating fair treatment. Since voice was a very salient variable in the choice of legal instruments I tried to find out whether and how legal authorities ought to intervene in organizations or communities to mandate the right to be heard and therefore create and support the motivation to adhere to rules.
I wanted to further understand the process of compliance and therefore conducted a few more studies on the subject. In my work with Alon Harel about social norms, self-interest and ambiguity we tried to understand whether it is more effective to create ambiguous standards or clear and strict rules? The results showed that social norms are on the upper hand when there is a clash between the norms and the law, but it only happens when the law is ambiguous and portrayed as a standard and not as a rule. When the law is a standard, people tend to interpret the law according to their self-interest, in their own favour. Therefore when the policy makers want to create a certain law, and there are norms that contradict that law, it is better to create it as a set of rules and not as a standard that will allow interpretation.
In another study, with Doron Teichman we examined the different ways in which legal payments effect the way people choose to behave regarding environmental pollution. The results showed that people who pay before the harmful act and not after, perceive it as less negative and are more prone to engage in the act. We also found that people were more ready to commit the act when the payment went to the victim and not to a third party (like the state). We also found that when the payment is not certain people were less likely to commit the harmful act. The results show that when the payment is perceived as a fine it most likely to lessen the chances for the act to occur since it will be considered less moral and socially acceptable.
In a different study, with Orly Lobel we examined behavioural versus institutional antecedents of decentralised enforcement in organisations. We measured employees' responses to the misconducts in their organisations by manipulating five different common misconducts in five different domains: financial, environmental, sexual harassment, safety, and employee theft. The three key findings were:
(1) the more global that the illegality is within the organization, the less likely that it will be subject to individual social enforcement, and in particular, subject to reporting through internal grievance procedures of the organization;
(2) the organisational emphasis on internal compliance systems and employee voice has a positive effect on the willingness of an individual to report unlawful behaviour within the organisation and an adverse effect on external reporting in some cases;
(3) individuals characteristics, including gender, income and cultural differences have strong effects on the willingness of employees to engage in social enforcement.
In my main research project I focused on two important themes for which I conducted three consecutive waves of data collection. The first theme was the role of voice and representation in employees' choice of different institutions as legal instruments for employment relationships. I tried to understand where the state (courts, government and legislature) stands in the competition between unions and employers. I examined the relationship between voice and choice of legal instrument (e.g. does preferences for personal contract over union represent more or less need of voice), as well as strength of employees (demographic and subjective), (e.g. would stronger employees prefer personal contract in all issues?) I also examined what types of workers trust their employer, the union or the state (government, legislature and government) and in what legal domain. The second theme of my research was justice, solidarity and self-interest uncovering the motivation for employee's choice. I analysed how views about justice in the workplace interact with self-interest in choosing the preferred institution.
In another experiment with Tom Tyler, I investigated the perils and potential promise of mandating fair treatment. Since voice was a very salient variable in the choice of legal instruments I tried to find out whether and how legal authorities ought to intervene in organizations or communities to mandate the right to be heard and therefore create and support the motivation to adhere to rules.
I wanted to further understand the process of compliance and therefore conducted a few more studies on the subject. In my work with Alon Harel about social norms, self-interest and ambiguity we tried to understand whether it is more effective to create ambiguous standards or clear and strict rules? The results showed that social norms are on the upper hand when there is a clash between the norms and the law, but it only happens when the law is ambiguous and portrayed as a standard and not as a rule. When the law is a standard, people tend to interpret the law according to their self-interest, in their own favour. Therefore when the policy makers want to create a certain law, and there are norms that contradict that law, it is better to create it as a set of rules and not as a standard that will allow interpretation.
In another study, with Doron Teichman we examined the different ways in which legal payments effect the way people choose to behave regarding environmental pollution. The results showed that people who pay before the harmful act and not after, perceive it as less negative and are more prone to engage in the act. We also found that people were more ready to commit the act when the payment went to the victim and not to a third party (like the state). We also found that when the payment is not certain people were less likely to commit the harmful act. The results show that when the payment is perceived as a fine it most likely to lessen the chances for the act to occur since it will be considered less moral and socially acceptable.
In a different study, with Orly Lobel we examined behavioural versus institutional antecedents of decentralised enforcement in organisations. We measured employees' responses to the misconducts in their organisations by manipulating five different common misconducts in five different domains: financial, environmental, sexual harassment, safety, and employee theft. The three key findings were:
(1) the more global that the illegality is within the organization, the less likely that it will be subject to individual social enforcement, and in particular, subject to reporting through internal grievance procedures of the organization;
(2) the organisational emphasis on internal compliance systems and employee voice has a positive effect on the willingness of an individual to report unlawful behaviour within the organisation and an adverse effect on external reporting in some cases;
(3) individuals characteristics, including gender, income and cultural differences have strong effects on the willingness of employees to engage in social enforcement.