Multiple Normative Expectations and Interventions -Experimental Evidence on Whistleblowing Behaviour

Normative expectations – beliefs about what others perceive as appropriate – have been shown to influence behavioural choices across various domains. We examine this concept in the context of whistleblowing, where potential whistleblowers face two competing norms: promoting fairness by reporting wrongdoing versus maintaining loyalty to peers by staying silent. We investigate how normative expectations about these two mutually exclusive actions affect reporting decisions. Specifically, we test whether providing information on the majority beliefs about either the appropriateness of whistleblowing, or of staying silent, or about both behaviours together, differentially affects the whistleblowing decision. Using an incentivized experiment with UK employees on Prolific, our study yields four key findings: First, employees are more likely to report misconduct when they believe that the majority considers whistleblowing to be appropriate. Second, they are less likely to blow the whistle when they believe staying silent is deemed appropriate. Third, this effect prevails for a particularly important subgroup: among employees who believe that the majority supports whistleblowing, the reporting probability increases substantially when they simultaneously expect that staying silent is deemed inappropriate. Fourth, providing information about both normative dimensions combined or only about the inappropriateness of staying silent significantly increases whistleblowing compared to the (no information) baseline and to information about whistleblowing appropriateness alone. These findings demonstrate the importance of normative expectations about both behavioural options for accurately predicting whistleblowing behaviour, and that social information interventions are most effective when they target behaviours where appropriateness beliefs about conflicting options are dispersed.