why good people do bad things

Why Good People Do Bad Things
By Noah Goldstein, Ph.D.

Back in the 1990s, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other government officials around the country embraced an idea that was proposed by social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling (1982) known as the Broken Windows theory. This theory suggested that even small signs of disorder—such as a single broken window in a housing project or a storefront that goes unfixed—could encourage more widespread negative behavior in other domains because of the social norms that it communicates. Giuliani, his police chief, and other government officials who subscribed to this theory focused their attention on combating small but powerful signs of disorder and petty crime. These included removing graffiti, sweeping streets, and enacting a zero tolerance policy for seemingly minor violations like fare evading. These efforts have been linked by politicians to the reduction in other, more serious crimes and violations, although the scientific evidence to this point has remained inconclusive. However, recent research by behavioral scientists Kees Keizer, Siegwart Lindenberg, and Linda Steg (2008) seems to provide an answer about the influence of such seemingly small norm violations on other behavior in the environment.

The researchers ran a number of fascinating field experiments to test whether subtle signs of disorder in the environment could create bad behavior in other domains. In one experiment, Keizer and his colleagues found the perfect setting for their test: an alleyway by a shopping mall where shoppers typically parked their bikes. While the shoppers were at the mall, the researchers affixed a store’s advertisement on the handlebar of each bicycle with an elastic band. The researchers also either left the alleyway alone just as they found it or added graffiti to it. Because there were no garbage bins in the area, the shoppers who returned from the mall either had to take the advertisement with them or litter it. The results revealed that whereas 33% of the bicycle owners littered the paper when there was no graffiti, 69% did so when the environment was vandalized with the graffiti.
In another field experiment, the researchers went to a parking lot that had multiple pedestrian entrances and blocked off one those entrances with a series of temporary fences. Signage on the fencing indicated that people returning to their cars should not use that entrance, but instead should enter the lot through the other entrance, located approximately 200 yards away. However, the researchers left just enough of a gap between the fencing that a person could pass through if he or she really wanted. Interestingly, they also placed a sign on the fencing that told people that locking their bicycles to the fencing was prohibited. The only aspect of the study that Keizer and his colleagues altered was whether four bicycles were simply parked next to the fencing or were instead all locked to the fence.

The outcome? When the bicycles were simply positioned next to the fence, 27% stepped through the gap in the fence in violation of the signage. However, when the four bikes were locked to the fence in violation of the other signage, a whopping 82% of the participants stepped through the gap.

The research I’ve described to this point demonstrated that when people observe that their peers have violated one social norm, they are more likely to violate a related but different social norm. But could observing a seemingly small violation in the environment actually cause a person to steal when they otherwise wouldn’t have? To address this question, the researchers placed a stamped and addressed envelope clearly containing some money halfway in a mailbox so that it was visible and accessible to passersby. The only aspect of the study that Keizer altered was whether there was litter on the ground surrounding the mailbox. When there was no litter around the mailbox, 13% stole the envelope and the money inside it. However, when the environment was littered, the theft rate nearly doubled—25% stole the envelope!

The implications of this research are clear. First, more generally, the findings show just how powerful subtle cues in an environment can be in terms of influencing people’s behavior. This means that we have to be quite careful and deliberate in how we set up and maintain the environments that we create for our target audience. Second, more specifically, this work suggests that allowing visible signs of norm violations in domains that might seem less important might elicit norm violations in much more important areas.

For example, retail outlets might think that occasional graffiti in the dressing rooms or bathrooms is not worth worrying about; however, this research suggests that its presence might actually increase theft from the store. In an office context, this research suggests that allowing certain aspects of the office to remain disorderly or in disrepair could trickle down to subtly influence the workforce to slack off or, even worse, engage in some sort of workplace malfeasance.

Perhaps choosing not to police (or at least respond to) people’s lax behavior with the office refrigerator—allowing workers to leave their decaying fish tacos or four-week-old milk in the fridge—might just lead to your company to become the next Enron!

Questions for Discussion & Comment:

When have you been guilty of doing something your normally wouldn’t because the environment was different?
Now knowing this research, how will you change your work or home environment?
What current events or issues could be helped by heeding this information?