www.ijsc-online.org | IJSC 3 (2008): 5-13
SOCIAL NORMS: AN UNDERESTIMATED AND UNDEREMPLOYED LEVER FOR MANAGING CLIMATE CHANGE
Abstract: It is widely recognized that communications that make social norms salient can be effective in influencing behavior. What is surprising, given the strength of the evidence, is how little people are aware of the extent to which social norms affect their own behavior. Consequently, this low-cost persuasion strategy is considera-bly underutilized to promote behaviors to help reduce climate change. In this paper we review recent field experiments that harness the power of social norms to influence pro-environmental behavior. We also elucidate the circumstances under which providing normative information is optimal, as well as circumstances under which such information can backfire to produce the opposite of what a communicator intends.
Keywords: social norms, descriptive norms, conservation behavior, social influence
Dieser Artikel liegt als Volltext nur in Englisch vor.
Kontakt:
Vladas Griskevicius
University of Minnesota
E-Mail: vladasg@umn.edu
Robert B. Cialdini
Arizona State University
E-Mail: n/a
Noah J. Goldstein
University of Chicago
E-Mail: n/a