Breaking the rules

Violation of rules and norms is a common phenomenon in human societies. Whereas behavioural research has delineated situational and organizational determinants of rule violations, very little is known about the consequences of this behaviour right at the moment it takes place. The present experiments show that the mere fact of violating a rule leaves a fingerprint on the acting agent, indicating that rule representations cannot be suppressed easily. This holds true even when violations are neither sanctioned nor yield any other obvious consequences. These observations open a new perspective on rule violation behaviour, shifting the focus from predicting whether or not violations are likely to occur to the processes involved in actually performing the behaviour.