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How can behaviors become popular even when most people dislike them?
“The Emperor’s New Clothes” and the role of private versus public beliefs and the enforcement of social norms.
Unpopular norms that people follow include:
· Under-aged drinking
· Buying expensive things (watches, yacht)
· Witch hunt
When an entire population practices and also enforces a behavior that privately, nobody wants, we have the Emperor’s Dilemma.
Model — Compliance & Enforcement
Even norms that are not beneficial, and norms that nobody wants can spread.
The view that norms are created to prevent negative externalities, or to promote positive ones, is virtually canonical in the rational choice literature.
Reason norms spread because the false believers are trying to conceal their true beliefs, and by doing so, overcompensate so much, that they pressure everyone else to start believing it.
This process cascades from social network neighborhood to neighborhood and winds up generating a norm of enforcement that nobody wants.
We are all social beings, we adjust our behavior and roles to the people we interact with.