Cristina Bicchieri
Experimental evidence on pre-play communication supports a "focus function of communication” hypothesis. Relevant communication facilitates cooperative, pro-social behavior because it causes a shift in individuals’ focus towards strategies dictated by some salient social norm. After reviewing the formal foundations for a general theory of conformity to social norms, we provide an original application illustrating how a framework that can allow for different conjectures about norms is able to capture the focus function of communication and to explain experimental results.