As our latest guest in the Research Seminar series, we were delighted to welcome Nicole Mead from the Schulich School of Business. She presented her most recent work on the links between lay beliefs in the so-called social contract, consumer preferences and system-level policy support.

The notion of the social contract describes the idea that there are unwritten rules and norms that social actors must follow for society to function harmoniously. Nicole explores how lay people's beliefs in the social contract are relevant to their decision-making. Her research provides a conceptualization of belief in the social contract and explains how it differs from other related constructs. Based on this conceptualization, Nicole and her co-authors developed an easy-to-administer scale to measure belief in the social contract and demonstrated its validity and reliability in five countries (Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States).

Building on the conceptualization and scale development, Nicole's research shows that the belief in the social contract can predict important consumer decisions (zero-sum thinking; temporal discounting) and support for system-level policy support to make progress towards desirable outcomes. Overall, this highlights the relevance of individual beliefs in the social contract for consumer decisions, particularly in situations where progress towards desired outcomes requires collective action.

We would like to thank Nicole for presenting her fascinating research and for the stimulating discussions during her visit.