Charles Efferson (Royal Holloway University of London) and Sonja Vogt (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)

Title:  The seduction of applied conformity

Abstract:  For a policy maker attempting to reverse a harmful tradition like female genital cutting, childhood smoking, or binge drinking, social influence represents a compelling mechanism.  If an intervention leads one individual to change to a beneficial alternative, this change in behaviour may influence others to follow suit without additional interference from the policy maker.  Accordingly, a key objective is to mobilise social influence to induce these spillovers, and this idea has shaped influential approaches to reversing harmful traditions in various domains, with the abandonment of female genital cutting standing as a canonical example.  We present data from two studies in Sudan that question the basis of relying on social influence to accelerate the abandonment of female genital cutting.  We follow by developing a framework to examine the scope for beneficial spillovers and find that they can be entirely absent even if social influence pervades individual decision making.  Our analysis highlights three critical considerations.  First, if an intervention targets agents amenable to change, social influence typically produces little or no spillovers.  Second, targeting agents resistant to change tends to maximise spillovers, but only if resistant individuals respond to a policy maker's intervention and social networks are not overly homophilous.  Finally, if some groups use the harmful behaviour to distinguish themselves from other groups, social influence takes a xenophobic form.  Xenophobia can severely limit spillovers, and in such cases the policy maker should attempt to break the link between the harmful behaviour and out-group derogation.