It Takes Two to Tango: Nudging Cooperative Behavior with a Proverb

Abstract To align private and public interests in social dilemmas, formal regulations have been developed providing enforcement mechanisms to promote cooperation and decrease free riding. Although formal rules sanctioning free riders and rewarding cooperators work in some cases, they are costly to implement. In addition, unless individuals’ behavior is observed and external monitoring is high, these legally binding rules are not effective. In a 2 × 2 lab experimental design, this paper investigates whether a proverb reflecting an injunctive norm of cooperation can foster voluntarily cooperative behavior in a Voluntary Contribution Mechanism (VCM) with low monitoring and no punishment mechanisms. The utilized proverb is found to increase contribution. In addition, the findings show no significant difference between the proverb’s effect and the effect of a non-proverbial injunctive intervention. Moreover, social type is not found to have a moderating effect as there is no significant difference between the responses of prosocials and proselfs to the two injunctive interventions. The results of this paper imply that cultural proverbs could be used by policy makers as a soft low-cost intervention in social marketing campaigns.