Undermining anonymity reliably increases prosocial behavior across experiments

Evidence

A mountain of evidence in psychology and economics reveals how powerful social monitoring incentives are. Economic game experiments show that more people are prosocial and to a greater degree when the anonymity of the situation is undermined, or when they expect repeated future interactions, than if future interactions are absent. Experiments in social psychology have also shown that any cue that increases the feeling of being watched, such as exposure to cameras, mirrors, and audiences, increases prosocial tendencies, and those that encourage feelings of being hidden from view, such as ambient darkness or wearing dark glasses, license more selfishness and cheating. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 86

Categorization

• XREF: Directly grounds the analytical claim about the fumi-e: a public, visible apostasy ritual strips away anonymity that enables defection from religious solidarity — connects to Norenzayan’s own Big God mechanism and Baumard’s partner choice. — connects to: Social sharing of behavioral data abolishes individual privacy in favor of group truth — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1393; Modern anonymity does not weaken regard-based social sanctions. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1029; Internet anonymity weakens the perceived criminality of hacking
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 86