Theory and Practice of Social Norms Interventions: Eight Common Pitfalls

Abstract

Background: Scholars and practitioners working in health promotion and gender equality in low and mid-income countries (LMIC) are witnessing heightened interest in changing social norms to achieve greater wellbeing. Despite this burgeoning interest, the ability of practitioners to use social norm theory to inform programming, varies widely. Main Body: Here, we identify eight pitfalls that practitioners must avoid as they plan to integrate a social norms perspective in their interventions and as many learnings. The eight learnings are: 1) Social norms and attitudes are different; 2) Social norms and attitudes can be concordant; 3) Protective norms can offer important resources for achieving effective social improvement in people's gender-related health practices; 4) Harmful practices are sustained by an ecology of factors that need to be understood in their interactions; 5) The prevalence of a norm is not necessarily a sign of its strength; 6) Social norms can exert both direct and indirect influence; 7) Publicising the prevalence of a harmful practice can make things worse; 8) People-led social norm change is both the right and the smart thing to do. Conclusions: As the understanding of how norms evolve in LMIC advances, practitioners will develop greater understanding of what works to help people lead change in harmful norms within their contexts. Awareness of these pitfalls has helped several of them increase the effectiveness of their interventions addressing gender-related social norms in the field. We are confident that others will benefit from these reflections as well.