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Contrary to the popular saying, rules aren't meant to be broken, as they are foundational to society and exist to uphold safety, fairness and order in the face of chaos. The collective benefits of rule-following are well established, but individual incentives are often unclear. Yet, people still comply, and the reasons why are pieces of a puzzle that researchers of human behavior have been trying to piece together for years.

A recent study in Nature Human Behavior explored the behavioral principles behind why people follow rules using a newly designed framework called CRISP. A series of four online experiments based on the framework involving 14,034 English-speaking participants, revealed that the majority (55%–70%) of participants chose to follow arbitrary rules—even when the compliance was costly, they were anonymous and violations had no adverse effects on others.

This proposed CRISP system explains rule conformity (C) as a function of four components: R—intrinsic respect for rules, independent of others' behavior; I—extrinsic incentives, such as the threat of punishment for breaking rules; S—social expectations about whether others will follow the rule or believe one should; and P—social preferences, which matter when rule-following affects the well-being of others.

Rules, often described as the "grammar of society," are embedded in nearly every aspect of human social life—personal, professional, and political in written, said and unsaid forms.

Despite their ubiquity, the deeper reasons why individuals choose to follow the rules remain poorly understood. The threat of punishment or social ostracism can motivate compliance, but studies have shown that people often follow the rules even when there are no clear consequences or incentives for doing so.

To clarify this confusion, the researchers recruited 14,034 participants, primarily from Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing marketplace, and conducted a few control experiments at the University of Nottingham, as well as replication studies at a German laboratory, to test the robustness of the system.

The researchers designed a simple online task where the goal was to cross a screen. Everyone was provided with 20 money units (MUs), which decreased by 1 MU with every additional second taken to cross. The faster they crossed, the more money they kept. The only rule was to wait at the red stop light until it turned green. So ignoring the red light was the only solution to earning more money.

This same task was then customized for four different experiments. In experiment 1, all usual reasons to follow a rule were removed, giving participants a strong incentive to break it. They could also act anonymously to avoid reputational concerns, and their choices don't affect anyone else. Experiment 2 focused on measuring social expectations in different ways. Experiment 3 introduced a social context by letting participants observe others' rule-following. Finally, experiment 4 added social consequences and punishments for breaking the rules.

The researchers observed that 55%–70% of participants followed a costly rule—even when there was nothing preventing them from violating the rules. People generally expected rule-following and considered it to be socially appropriate. They also found that while rule-breaking was somewhat contagious—observing one violator lowered the number of compliant participants—most still chose to follow the rule.

While pro-social motives and external incentives boosted conformity, intrinsic respect for rules and social expectations presented themselves as the main drivers of this behavior, since 23% of the participants followed the rules unconditionally, regardless of others' actions or beliefs.

Understanding these nuances of rule-following behavior can have important implications for policy, law enforcement, and organizational behavior.

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