Social Norms, State Punishment, and Motivation Crowding in Anti‐Corruption Messaging: Experimental Evidence From China
2026-08-31
A growing body of scholarship views corruption not merely as a failure of monitoring and enforcement but as a resilient informal institution sustained by social perceptions—and misperceptions. When citizens believe others tolerate or engage in corruption, resisting it becomes a collective action problem, allowing corruption to perpetuate itself. Using a large‐scale survey experiment in China, this study tests whether correcting exaggerated perceptions of social tolerance for corruption can help break this cycle. We find that providing information about the actual (low) level of tolerance significantly strengthens anti‐corruption attitudes and intentions, especially among those who mistakenly believed a majority tolerated corruption. However, this effect is weakened when paired with punishment cues, suggesting that enforcement information can crowd out the motivational force of norm‐based messages. Our findings demonstrate both the potential and the limits of norm‐based informational interventions and offer implications for anti‐corruption messaging in comparable contexts.