Living up to the Expectations: The Role of Expectations on Norm Violation Over Time

By Hemant Kakkar, Peter Jin

Citation

Kakkar, Hemant., Jin, Peter. (2025). Living up to the Expectations: The Role of Expectations on Norm Violation Over Time .

2025

Abstract

Do expectations – i.e., generalized beliefs about one’s future performance - influence norm violations? Existing research remains inconclusive, especially when individuals are falling short of their expectations, i.e. when operating under a loss frame. While some have reported greater norm violations on the part of individuals who do not meet their goals, others have reported opposite findings, as goals motivated greater striving and perseverance during challenging times. We reconcile these two divergent perspectives and findings by contending that individuals who expected to do well but find themselves in a loss frame would engage in greater norm violations, not immediately but over time. Integrating the two perspectives, we suggest that the initial response of those in the loss frame would be to use acceptable actions consistent with the extant work in goal setting. However, over time, when individuals realize that they may not achieve their expected goal via acceptable means, they will be more willing to violate norms. We tested our hypotheses in two studies. Study 1 used a unique large dataset of soccer games from the top five European leagues, spanning multiple seasons. The dataset contained event-level observations over the course of every soccer game (N=9074), resulting in more than 940,000 observations. The panel nature of this dataset allowed us to study the role of time in influencing norm violations based on external expectations. In Study 2, we establish the causality of our findings by conducting a controlled experiment. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our research.

Hemant Kakkar is an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Indian School of Business (ISB). Prior to this, he served as an Assistant and Associate (untenured) Professor of Management and Organisations at the Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He received his doctoral degree in Organisational Behaviour from London Business School.
His research draws on social psychology and evolutionary theories of status and influence to examine judgments and behaviours of individuals and groups within social hierarchies. He also examines individuals' tendencies to engage in both positive and negative deviant behaviours.

He was awarded the 2021 Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Outstanding Dissertation Award, as well as, the Outstanding Dissertation Award 2021 by the International Association of Conflict Management. His research has also won Best Conference Paper awards from the Conflict Management Division of the Academy of Management (2021) and the International Association of Conflict Management (2021).

His research is published in leading academic journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Applied Psychology, Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. His research has also been featured in several popular media outlets, such as The Washington Post, Forbes, The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Times UK, and the Harvard Business Review.

At ISB, Professor Kakkar teaches the core course in Organisational Behaviour.  He has also taught Foundations of Organisational Behaviour to postgraduate students and graduate-level seminar courses at the Fuqua School of Business. In 2021, he received the Award for Excellence in Teaching for the MMS program. Before joining academia, he worked as a Technical Consultant at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., India.

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