“I don’t believe that you believe what I believe”: an experiment on misperceptions of social norms and whistleblowing

Social norms shape economic decision-making, yet individuals often systematically misperceive what others think and do, potentially leading to suboptimal social outcomes. While existing research has demonstrated the prevalence and consequences of norm misperceptions across various domains, the literature has remained surprisingly silent on norm-enforcing behaviours. Despite their important role in providing collective benefits, these behaviours are regularly avoided because they may be viewed ambivalently by peers and create personal costs and interpersonal conflict for the actor. Using whistleblowing as an example of a broader category of regulatory behaviour, we examine whether i) norm misperceptions inhibit enforcement actions in the form of whistleblowing, and ii) norm-based interventions can effectively induce a behavioural change in this challenging domain. Through survey data and an incentivised laboratory experiment, we demonstrate that while a majority of individuals (77.55 %) privately support whistleblowing, almost half (45.92 %) misperceive the majority's view. This misperception has significant behavioural consequences: even when individuals personally support whistleblowing, their likelihood of reporting decreases by more than 30 % when normative expectations are perceived to favour silence rather than reporting. A social information intervention revealing the distribution of peer support shows only modest effectiveness. While it marginally increases whistleblowing among those already personally favouring reporting, it does not affect those who personally oppose whistleblowing. Our findings demonstrate the boundaries of norm interventions in enforcement contexts and suggest that, specifically for whistleblowing, corrections of norm misperceptions should not be viewed as substitutes for conventional approaches, such as financial incentives or whistleblower protection, in promoting whistleblowing.