# An Anti-Misconduct Measure That Advertises Prevalence Increases the Misconduct ## Claim Signaling how common a behavior is overrides the injunctive norm you intended to strengthen. Asking students to sign an honesty pledge before an exam doubled cheating, because the pledge implies everyone cheats. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Applies to compliance training, ethics attestations, security-awareness campaigns, and any intervention that establishes a descriptive norm while trying to suppress the behavior. The variable is framing, not the intervention itself. ## Links - [[Moral Image Is Contingent on the Crowd and Moral Identity Is Not]] — evidence-for; prevalence signaling works by moving the crowd the image is calibrated against - [[A Findable Resource Beats a Warning Broadcast at the Unready]] — extends; both concern messages that misfire on the audience they reach - [[3. Resources/MOCs/AI & the Future of Knowledge Work MOC]] — the intervention design error institutions are making as they respond to AI-era cheating