Arbeitspapier

Are Academics Messy? Testing the Broken Windows Theory with a Field Experiment in the Work Environment

We study the broken windows theory with a field experiment in a shared area of a workplace in academia (department common room). We explore academics' and postgraduate students' behaviour under an order condition (clean environment) and a disorder condition (messy environment). We find strong support that signs of disorderly behaviour triggers littering. In the disorder treatment 59% of the subjects litter compared to 18% in the order condition. The results remain robust when controlling compared to previous studies for a large set of factors in a multivariate analysis. When academic staff members and postgraduate students observe that others violated the social norm of keeping the common room clean the probability of littering increases ceteris paribus by around 40 percent.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: CREMA Working Paper ; No. 2009-21

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
Field Experiments
Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
Thema
broken windows theory
field experiment
littering

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Ramos, João
Torgler, Benno
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)
(wo)
Basel
(wann)
2009

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Ramos, João
  • Torgler, Benno
  • Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)

Entstanden

  • 2009

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