Quarter of people follow rules even with no downside to breaking them

Break the rules, or fall in line?

Would you follow a rule, even if doing so harms you and no one would know if you broke it? A series of experiments suggests that 1 in 4 people do exactly that: obey rules unconditionally, even in the absence of social pressure, punishment and personal gain. The results challenge traditional economic theories, which assume that rule-following is driven largely by extrinsic incentives, and could reshape how we design new laws.

“Following or breaking rules is what human social behaviour often amounts to,” says Simon Gaechter at the University of…