Following Rules When Others Do Not: Evidence from the Continuous Rule-Following Task

Why do people follow rules, even when breaking them is easy and others visibly violate them? This project introduces the online Continuous Rule-Following Task (CRFT), a simple behavioral measure designed to study heterogeneity in rule compliance. Participants observe a traffic-light environment with an explicit instruction to wait until the light turns green. Although they are free to move at any time, five other individuals move sequentially before the signal changes. The task therefore captures the tension between compliance with an authority-imposed rule and increasing peer-rule violation, allowing us to distinguish unconditional rule followers, conditional rule breakers, and immediate rule breakers.

I will present evidence from an online experiment with 800 German residents. The presence of an explicit rule substantially increases waiting behavior relative to a no-rule control condition. Most participants comply unconditionally, while others break the rule either immediately or only after observing repeated violations by others. Open-ended explanations, beliefs about others’ behavior, perceived appropriateness judgments, and preference and individual-difference measures provide insight into the psychological and social mechanisms underlying rule-following. I will also discuss planned follow-up studies examining the roles of cultural background and peer identity. More broadly, the project aims to provide a short, scalable behavioral measure for studying rule-following and peer influence in large samples.

Website:  Dr Ozan Isler