The Social Psychology of Financial Regulatory Governance

Abstract

This paper contributes to addressing a fundamental question: how do institutions, in general, and financial regulators, in particular, “think”? To this end, the analytical tools of social psychology are applied to the regulatory framework for financial services in the European Union. The paper reveals a relationship between the constitutional status of EU regulators and the dominant group dynamics typified in the literature of social psychology. Such a relationship indicates that institutional structures might favour the emergence of specific behavioural patterns and modus operandi within regulatory bodies. Furthermore, the identification of dominant group dynamics paves the way to a more profound understanding of conflictual dynamics within groups of decision-makers. Such a novel analytical map is, then, applied to the context of the ongoing debate as to whether, following Brexit, the decision-making process of EU regulators is poised to be marked by a divide separating eurozone and non-eurozone Member States.