The role of social norms on the willingness to act and donate against sexual harassment

Sexual harassment has both social and economic consequences for the harassed and others witnessing the behavior, so eliminating sexual harassment is key in creating safe social contexts in which all members of society can contribute. This paper uses an experimental setting to examine the effectiveness of injunctive social norms in nudging potential bystanders to be willing to act against situations of sexual harassment or donate toward related campaigns and examines gender differences in these effects. This was accomplished by exclusively providing the treatment group with previously determined social norms related to the appropriateness of a set of sexual harassment scenarios. We find evidence that providing social norm information in a sexual harassment setting has mixed effects on the willingness to act as a bystander and generally has positive effects on donations. Further, there is evidence that the treatment effects vary by gender.