Compliance with the law
When we identify a behaviour that we want to
discourage, we often turn to the law in an attempt to
make that behaviour less attractive. When we then
promote the legal consequences of that behaviour,
we hope that we can influence rational people to
decide not to do it anymore. In our particular context,
penalty points and a fine have been linked to the action
and then, to try to demonstrate that that this is taken
seriously, the level of fine and the number of points
associated with it increased in 2017. By increasing
the consequences of being caught, we hope that the
benefits of doing it seem less attractive. to receive it, it will be irrelevant. With a decline in roads
policing officer numbers, and no viable technological
alternative, this is increasingly problematic - and recent
research suggests that 54% of drivers believe that they
can use a mobile phone while driving without getting
caught¹.
When we attempt to make people behave by relying
on the fear of getting caught and the consequences
of getting caught, we call this instrumental compliance.
This relies on (firstly) identifying offending behaviour
and (secondly) successfully punishing it. Without this
threat, people who are motivated only by the fear of
punishment will not be deterred. The penalty could be
incredibly severe, but if nobody believes they are likely A combination of these two approaches is likely
to influence the largest number of people, and
to impact on their different motivations. A focus
simply on instrumental compliance will be resource
intensive and, as soon as we stop enforcing the
law, or enforce it somewhere else, we will find that
offending resumes.
Alternatively, people may comply because they think
it is the right thing to do. This is known as normative
commitment. Rather than focusing on prosecution and
penalties, efforts to increase normative compliance are
likely to focus on education and engagement.
¹ The AA. (2018). What’s the chance of being caught for a driving offence? News report. Available from: https://www.theaa.com/about-us/newsroom/
driving-offence-enforcement.
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