Normative Messages Research Articles

Social Sustainability as Buying Local: Effects of Soft Policy, Meso-Level Actors, and Social Influences on Purchase Intentions

Recently issued United Nations Sustainable Development Goals call for people to make extensive behavioral changes, including consuming food more sustainably. The authors explore the role that meso-level retailers play in local purchasing, an activity that the United Nations recognizes as a contributor to sustainability. In so doing, the authors promote more balance within the marketing literature, which has focused more on the environmental component of products and purchasing and less on the local dimension. This article spotlights “soft” policies, those that use persuasion and encourage voluntary action, rather than direct methods, such as subsidies and regulations. The authors develop a core hypothesis about how social norm messages and attitudes toward local food affect consumer purchase intentions. They test this hypothesis across national contexts via online surveys of 316 Italian consumers (Study 1) and 186 U.S. consumers (Study 2). The analysis reveals that in both countries, the effectiveness of social norm messages increases with unfavorable attitudes toward local buying. The study concludes with thoughts for researchers and policy makers about how meso-level actors, such as retailers, can elicit more local purchasing.

Social identification and normative conflict: When student and educator learning norms collide

AbstractThe current paper explores perceived norm conflict, social identification, and learning approaches in the applied context of higher education. Research has established the influence of identification with fellow students, and their perceived norms, on student approaches to learning. However, in the current paper, we argue that this model is not entirely ecologically valid and that students are not the only source of normative influence in the study context. In this first step to unpack these complex normative influences, we examine the next most‐proximal source of normative information—the educator. In essence, we explore the ways that the normative communications of a within‐field educator can also influence student learning approaches and the ways these two sets of normative effects may interact. Testing a sample of undergraduate students at Australian universities, we explore how students resolve conflicting intragroup norm sources. Findings suggest that, in line with previous literature, stronger identification with the field of study is associated with deep learning approaches, and this effect is moderated by perceived student norms such that the valence of the study norms can undermine or accentuate this effect. Novel results unpacking the effects of normative conflict suggest that this moderation effect is only present when educator norms are ambiguous and that, in instances of clearly conflicting normative messages, the identification main effect prevails. The implications and applications are discussed.

Realising the right to sexual and reproductive health: access to essential medicines for medical abortion as a core obligation

BackgroundWHO has a pivotal role to play as the leading international agency promoting good practices in health and human rights. In 2005, mifepristone and misoprostol were added to WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines for combined use to terminate unwanted pregnancies. However, these drugs were considered ‘complementary’ and qualified for use when in line with national legislation and where ‘culturally acceptable’.DiscussionThis article argues that these qualifications, while perhaps appropriate at the time, must now be removed. First, compelling medical evidence justifies their reclassification as a ‘core’ essential medicine. Second, continuing to subjugate essential medicines for medical abortion to domestic law and cultural practices is incoherent with today’s human rights standards in which universal access to these medicines is an inextricable part of the right to sexual and reproductive health, which should be supported and realised through domestic legislation.ConclusionThis article shows that removing such limitations will align WHO’s Model List of Essential Medicines with the mounting scientific evidence, human rights standards, and its own more recently developed policy guidance. This measure will send a strong normative message to governments that these medicines should be readily available in a functioning and human-rights-abiding health system.

Predicting Ambivalence: When Same-Sex Sex is Only “Sometimes Wrong”

ABSTRACTDespite Americans’ growing acceptance of LGBTQ people and their sexual behaviors over the past 40 years, approximately 10% of the population consistently expresses conflicted feelings, reporting that same-sex sex is only sometimes wrong. This research employs a theory of socially structured ambivalence to examine how individuals with ambivalence toward the morality of same-sex sex differ from those with strong moral stances. Using multinomial regression analysis of General Social Survey data, we find that socio-structural conflicts—e.g. simultaneous membership in institutions with conflicting normative messages—are predictive of ambivalent attitudes, and the presence of these structured conflicts appears to have a cumulative effect. These findings provide evidence of the predictive power of socially structured conflicts in producing ambivalent attitudes and expand the existing literature on ambivalence and attitudes about same-sex relations. We propose that scholars conceptualize ambivalence as a distinctly socio-structural and relational construct that may help to signal fertile ground for social change.

Increasing Vaccination: Putting Psychological Science Into Action

Vaccination is one of the great achievements of the 20th century, yet persistent public-health problems include inadequate, delayed, and unstable vaccination uptake. Psychology offers three general propositions for understanding and intervening to increase uptake where vaccines are available and affordable. The first proposition is that thoughts and feelings can motivate getting vaccinated. Hundreds of studies have shown that risk beliefs and anticipated regret about infectious disease correlate reliably with getting vaccinated; low confidence in vaccine effectiveness and concern about safety correlate reliably with not getting vaccinated. We were surprised to find that few randomized trials have successfully changed what people think and feel about vaccines, and those few that succeeded were minimally effective in increasing uptake. The second proposition is that social processes can motivate getting vaccinated. Substantial research has shown that social norms are associated with vaccination, but few interventions examined whether normative messages increase vaccination uptake. Many experimental studies have relied on hypothetical scenarios to demonstrate that altruism and free riding (i.e., taking advantage of the protection provided by others) can affect intended behavior, but few randomized trials have tested strategies to change social processes to increase vaccination uptake. The third proposition is that interventions can facilitate vaccination directly by leveraging, but not trying to change, what people think and feel. These interventions are by far the most plentiful and effective in the literature. To increase vaccine uptake, these interventions build on existing favorable intentions by facilitating action (through reminders, prompts, and primes) and reducing barriers (through logistics and healthy defaults); these interventions also shape behavior (through incentives, sanctions, and requirements). Although identification of principles for changing thoughts and feelings to motivate vaccination is a work in progress, psychological principles can now inform the design of systems and policies to directly facilitate action.

Using a descriptive social norm to increase vegetable selection in workplace restaurant settings.

Objective: Recent work has shown that exposure to social norm messages may enhance the consumption of vegetables. However, the majority of this work has been conducted in laboratories, often with student populations. Little is known about whether this approach can be successfully used in other contexts. In this study, a poster featuring a message based on social norms was tested to examine whether it could increase and maintain the purchase of meals with vegetables in workplace restaurants. Method: A pretest–posttest design with 3 phases was used in 3 workplace restaurants in the United Kingdom. The first 2 weeks formed the preintervention phase, the second 2 weeks the intervention phase, and the last 2 weeks the postintervention phase. During the intervention phase only, posters containing a social norm message relaying information about vegetable purchases of other diners were placed in each restaurant. The main outcome measure was the percentage of meals purchased with vegetables, which was analyzed using Pearson’s chi-squared test. Results: Participants were judged to be male (57%), not overweight (75%), and under the age of 60 (98%). The intervention was positively associated with the percentage of meals purchased with vegetables: baseline versus intervention (60% vs. 64% of meals purchased with vegetables; p < .01); intervention versus postintervention (64% vs. 67% of meals purchased with vegetables; p < .01); and baseline versus postintervention (60% vs. 67% of meals purchased with vegetables; p < .001). Conclusions: Social norm messages may increase the purchase of vegetables in workplace settings.

Behavioural text message reminders to improve participation in cervical screening: a randomised controlled trial

BackgroundAbout 4500 lives are saved annually in England through cervical screening. If all eligible women participated regularly, 83% of cervical cancer deaths could be avoided. Between 2011 and 2016, age-appropriate coverage (ie, screening within the previous 3·5 years for women aged 24–49 years or 5 years for those aged 50–64) fell from 75·7% to 72·6% nationally, and from 69·5% to 66·7% in London. Recent evidence showed that text message reminders (SMS-R) improved participation in breast and bowel cancer screening, and that SMS-R message content affects clinic attendance. We tested the effect of modifying SMS-R content on cervical screening uptake (ie, attendance after invitation) in a low-coverage London borough. MethodsWomen aged 30 years and older, invited for screening from Feb 16, 2015, to Oct 5, 2015, were randomised (1:1:1:1:1:1:1 with a random number generator) to receive no SMS-R or one of six SMS-Rs: a simple reminder, general practice (GP) endorsement, total and proportional social norms messages (communicating screening rates of peers), and gain and loss-framed messages (lives saved and lives lost associated with participating in screening). Women aged 25–29 years were randomised (1:1) to no SMS-R or a GP-endorsed SMS-R. Recipients were masked to SMS-R content of other trial arms. The primary outcome was the proportion of women screened by 18 weeks, and analysis was by intention to treat with logistic regression, adjusted for age and Index of Multiple Deprivation decile. Ethics approval was obtained from South East Coast–Brighton & Sussex REC. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02363088. Findings1568, 1522, 1493, 1514, 1488, 1560, and 1507 women aged 30–64 years were allocated no SMS-R, a simple reminder, GP-endorsement, total social norms, proportional social norms, gain-framed SMS-R, and loss-framed SMS-R, respectively. The greatest difference in uptake was between no SMS-R (34·4%, n=540) and GP endorsement (38·4%, 575) (odds ratio 1·19, 95% CI 1·03–1·38; p=0·02), followed by the simple reminder (38·1%, 580) (1·18, 1·02–1·37; p=0·03). No overall significant difference between the control and other trial arms was observed. Participation among the 1453 and 1482 women aged 25–29 years randomised to no SMS-R or a GP endorsement was 26·4% (384) and 31·4% (466), respectively (1·29, 1·09–1·51; p=0·002). No harms were observed. InterpretationSMS-R messages improve cervical screening uptake. The behavioural sciences can inform the message content that has the biggest impact on screening participation. FundingImperial College Trust Charity, Public Health England

What kind of social norms messages work in adolescents? Lessons learned from The GOOD life program

What kind of social norms messages work in adolescents? Lessons learned from The GOOD life program

Using social injunctive norms to nudge users to build green houses / El empleo de normas prescriptivas sociales para animar a los usuarios a construir casas ecológicas

We propose a study that aims to evaluate the impact of social injunctive normative messages on users of a building renovation application. We used software that allowed participants to design renovation projects from an existing building and test different configurations. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the efficiency of injunctive social norms in order to incentivize energy-efficient renovation. We compared three groups varying in the presence or absence of the normative message and its salience. Results showed that compared to the control group, the salient injunctive norm group designs significantly more energy efficient buildings. We also found a marginally significant difference between non-salient injunctive norm and salient injunctive norm groups. Results have several implications for both social norm researchers and designers of similar applications.

How do French social housing tenants interpret normative descriptive feedback connected with energy? / ¿Cómo interpretan los inquilinos de vivienda social en Francia los mensajes normativos descriptivos respecto al consumo de energía?

Energy-efficient houses are designed to reduce electricity. However, a gap between theoretical and actual energy performance of buildings is often observed. Achieving energy efficiency through regulatory norms is insufficient, and ways must be found to change people’s behaviours. In this line, normative feedback could be a powerful tool to reduce residential energy consumption. In the present research, 14 low-energy buildings were equipped to measure energy consumption. Their occupants received descriptive normative messages used to promote household energy saving. We were interested in the quantitative impact of normative feedback on household consumption, but also in the way in which these households receive the information linked to normative feedback and how they adapt to it. The results showed that energy-efficient houses are not an environment in which people could learn new practices if they do not have knowledgeable pre-requisites. A normative feedback can help change habits only for people who have the knowledge regarding energy issues that allows them to understand the feedback. For most households, the information is not understood and does not lead to behavioural change.

The influence of persuasive messages on healthy eating habits: a test of the Theory of Reasoned Action when attitudes and subjective norm are targeted for change

Messages designed to improve healthy eating habits are all around us, often aiming to change our attitudes and perceptions toward specific eating behaviors so that we will adopt better habits. This study provides a test of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to better understand the impact of influence messages on healthy eating. This longitudinal cohort study examined the TRA within two systems of change: (1) when attitudes and (2) subjective norms were influenced by messages to increase fruit/vegetable consumption and prevent meal skipping. Participants were assigned randomly to one of three messages: (1) no‐message control group, (2) attitude message, and (3) subjective norm message. For fruit/vegetable consumption, when attitude or subjective norm changed, TRA's predictions were not consistent with the data. With no change present, TRA's predictions were consistent with control group data. These results were not replicated with skipping meals. The only model to predict accurately participants' skipped meals was a simple causal string (attitudes impacted intentions which predicted behavior). Persuasive messages can influence healthy eating behavior, but the mechanism is not consistent with TRA predictions. Also, using messages to influence healthy eating subjective norms proved difficult.

When and how does normative feedback reduce intentions to drink irresponsibly? an experimental investigation

Objectives: To test the effects of exposure to a campaign to discourage drinking alcohol drinks down in one gulp (‘bolting’).Method: Laboratory experiments assessed the effects of exposure to (1) the campaign (Pilot Study; N = 48), (2) the campaign combined with an injunctive norm message of explicit peer disapproval of bolting (Study 1; N = 78), and (3) the campaign and a descriptive norm message of low prevalence of bolting (Study 2; N = 96) on both normative perceptions of bolting and bolting intentions.Results: The Pilot Study showed that the campaign had no effect on norm perceptions or bolting intentions. In Study 1, the campaign was associated with higher, not lower, intentions to bolt drinks, an effect exacerbated by the injunctive norm information. Bootstrapping analyzes of the indirect effects showed that participants perceived that bolting was more common when exposed to the campaign combined with the injunctive norm, and these negative descriptive norm perceptions were associated with stronger bolting intentions. In contrast, Study 2 showed that addition of the descriptive norm (i.e. low prevalence information) enhanced the effectiveness of the campaign.Conclusions: The results highlight the potentially harmful effects of exposure to an injunctive norm message of disapproval information and distinguish them from the beneficial impact of exposure to a descriptive norm message of low prevalence. The importance of pre-testing campaigns and providing process evaluations is discussed.

Social approval bias in self-reported fruit and vegetable intake after presentation of a normative message in college students

ObjectiveTo determine the accuracy of self-reported data regarding Fruit and Vegetable (FV) intake in college students at Utah State University after being presented with a descriptive normative message. InterventionParticipants (N = 167) were recruited from general education courses and asked to complete a baseline survey containing a FV screener from the National Cancer Institute. They were then randomized to receive one of four messages one week after the initial survey and asked to immediately complete the same FV screener. The Control group received no FV message. The Recommendation group received a message that the recommendation for FV is 4–5 cups per day. The two normative groups received a message that either 80% of students ate more (Low) or less (High) FV than they did, regardless of actual intake, in addition to the recommended intake. AnalysisRepeated measures ANOVA was used to assess differences in reported FV intake and perceived FV intake of peers between the first and second assessment. Results and conclusionsThose receiving the message that they were in the lowest 20th percentile of intake reported a half-cup increase in self-reported FV intake and a one-cup increase in perception of peers’ intake (p = 0.037 and p=<0.001, respectively). No significant differences were observed in other groups. These results indicate that normative messaging may influence self-reported FV intake and perception of peer intake of college students when this message indicates that the participant is in the lowest percentile of their peers.

The effect of social norms messaging regarding skin carotenoid concentrations among college students

Descriptive social-normative messaging positively influences short-term dietary choices and healthy food intake. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of descriptive normative messages on college students' skin carotenoid concentrations (a biomarker of carotenoid-containing fruit and vegetable [FV] intake) over an 8-week period. 251 college students consented to participate and 74% completed the study. Students were randomly assigned to groups who, following a baseline evaluation of skin-carotenoid levels, were told how their score ranked within a peer group of college students attending the same university (Individualized Normative group), that their score was in the lower 20th percentile of the peer group (Manipulated Normative group), or were given no information about their score or the peer group (Control group). Skin carotenoid concentrations were reassessed 8 weeks after the normative messages were presented or withheld. Skin carotenoid levels of those in the Manipulated Normative group increased significantly more than did scores of those in the Control group (t (126) = 3.74, p < 0.001; d = 0.67), but these students' self-reported FV intake did not increase. This finding suggests normative messaging can influence behavior for up to 8 weeks, but future research must better evaluate if the increase in skin carotenoids reflects increased FV consumption, increased consumption of carotenoid-containing FV (with decreased consumption of other FV), or is accounted for by some other behavior change (e.g., increased use of supplements). These findings support further exploration of normative messaging as a technique for producing the long-term behavior change needed to impact public health.

Addressing Participant Inattention in Federal Programs: A Field Experiment with the Conservation Reserve Program

AbstractVoluntary land conservation programs depend upon the willingness of land owners to participate. Since participation requires commitment to long‐term contracts, most studies on participation focus on changes to the pecuniary incentives facing land owners. This study presents a large‐scale field experiment within the USDA's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) that examines whether informational outreach, including behavioral nudges, could improve land owners’ willingness to participate. The experiment evaluates the impact of three types of reminder letters on the rate at which land is offered into the CRP. We find that for the most well‐informed group, farms with expiring CRP contracts, the reminder letters did improve participation. We interpret this result as evidence of inattentive behavior. We do not detect any differences in the estimated treatment effects among the basic reminder letter and the letters augmented with peer comparisons and social norm messaging, nor do we detect any treatment effect among currently unenrolled farms. From a policy perspective, these results imply that the USDA can generate additional CRP offers among farms with expiring contracts at an average cost of $39 per additional offer. Assuming a twenty‐five million acre program, reminder letters sent during every sign‐up period would result in re‐enrollment offers from an additional 420,000 acres. Using simulations based on offers from prior CRP sign‐ups, we estimate that these additional offers in the CRP auction would reduce program costs. Depending on the year of simulation, the outreach effort achieves a benefit‐cost ratio of between 20:1 and 90:1.

A field experiment: Testing the potential of norms for achieving behavior change in English parishes

Tests of behavioral insights have become increasingly more common, and have been deployed by UK government and agencies. Typically, these field experiments aim to change individual-level behaviors. The current article tests the potential of behavioral insights for changing group-level behavior. This article reports the results of a field experiment carried out with the Department of Communities and Local Government. The field experiment tested whether a normative message (vs. a neutral or no message) could encourage parish councils to register an asset of community value (social action). There was no statistically significant effect from this intervention, but the process of designing and implementing this field experiment shows the potential for theories of behavior change to be used by government departments.

Tracing How Normative Messages May Influence Physical Activity Intention.

Normative messages have been shown to increase intention to do physical activity. We traced how "positive" and "negative" normative messages influenced physical activity intention by comparing constructs of the model of goal-directed behavior with descriptive norms (MGDB + DNs) across control and treatment groups in an experiment. For this purpose, 16-24-year-old respondents (n = 1,200) in Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania were asked about their age, sex, and levels of physical activity before being exposed to positive and negative normative messages and completing a questionnaire with MGDB + DNs scales. Different MGDB + DNs constructs were influenced by the normative messages: compared with the control, the negative message group showed stronger attitudes (p = .003) and the positive message group showed higher positive anticipated emotions (p = .005). The positive message's effect is consistent with the literature on conformity to social norms. The negative message's effect lends itself to interpretations based on social identity and deviance regulation theories.

‘The Good Parent’ and ‘The Other Parent’: Medicalization, othering and social exclusion in Israeli professional discourse regarding learning disorders and difficulties

This lecture seeks to uncover the various textual techniques through which binary representations of ‘parenthood’ are constructed in the framework of clinical professional discourse of Israeli learning-disorders experts. Historically this discourse has constructed two contrasting parenthood representations: ‘parenthood of learning-disordered children’ on the one hand, and ‘parenthood of cultural deprived children’ on the other hand.The lecture posits the following main questions: Which textual representations of ‘parenthood’ were constructed in the framework of the aforementioned discourses? Which affinities can be identified between the textual representations and the contextual characteristics of social class, culture, ethnicity and educational capital? And which affinities can be identified between these representations and the explicit or implicit normative messages of ‘blame’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘agency’ embedded in the texts? Discourse analysis was implemented in order to uncover the mutual and contradictory construction processes. The analysis also reveals the stereotypical imputation of ‘normative’ parents with a well-off, well-educated and western origin population, as well as the stereotypical imputation of ‘problematic’ parents with a low class, little educated and eastern origin population. The lecture concludes by situating the texts in the social and historical context of their formulation: The processes of psychocultural othering which operated on low class, little educated and eastern origin parents are interpreted on the historical background of the class and ethnic hierarchical structure of the Israeli society. The conclusion also raises a conjecture regarding a rising new medicalizing ‘othering’ potential, a potential, which was already implicitly embedded in the analyzed historical texts.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.

Unraveling the 'Social' in Social Norms: The Conditioning Effect of User Connectivity

Social influence in the form of social norms has been shown to be a powerful means to motivate behavior change, and is widely used to promote desirable behaviors such as a healthy life style. While abundant empirical evidence supports the average efficacy of social norms, there are few studies examining how the effects of social norms are differentially manifest across individuals. In today’s socially connected digital world, we conjecture that the effects of social norms are conditional on one’s digital social ties, and provide new empirical evidence from a randomized field experiment. Our field experiment included more than 7,000 individuals observed for a two-month period on an online physical activity community. We studied the effect of social norms on users’ goal setting and goal attainment behavior. We find that while social influence increases the rate of goal setting, strikingly, we also observe an undesirable effect in that such influence leads to lower rates of goal attainment. Our examination of heterogeneous treatment effects shows that individuals with higher levels of social connectivity are the most susceptible to a social norms message. Further analysis suggests that social norms motivate these runners with high social connectivity to set up a goal beyond their own capabilities, resulting in low goal attainment. Our findings have important implications for the design of interventions in the context of mobile health technologies.

Examining the Effects of Normative Messages on Perceived Effort in Sport

The primary purpose of this research was to examine the influence of different normative (descriptive, injunctive) messages on individual self-reported effort in sport. Adult recreational volleyball athletes (n = 58) reported their self-perceived effort, were randomly assigned through their team designation to one of three conditions (descriptive norm, injunctive norm, control) and then received multiple e-mail messages specific to their condition motivating them to work hard. Participants reported their self-perceived effort a second time after receipt of these messages. The results from a one-way ANCOVA, controlling for initial perceived effort, revealed that those in the normative conditions reported greater perceived effort than those in the control condition. Preliminary evidence is provided suggesting that individual self-reported effort may be significantly impacted by the perception of what others are doing and what others approve of within that environment (i.e., normative information).