He found that deterrence—the fear of punishment—did not impact why people obey or disobey the law. Instead, he found that people’s values and norms mattered. By far the strongest predictor of compliance was whether people held that these laws were in line with their own morals. The more they morally saw that littering was a problem, the more they complied with the littering law. The more they morally rejected drunk driving, the less they engaged in drunk driving.
