Attempts to use social norms marketing to change behaviour have had mixed success. Drawing on empirical research and psychological theory discuss when and how social norms marketing has been successful (or not) in changing behaviour."A norm is like any other psychological phenomena, a construct that has widerspread use age because it helps describe and explain human behaviour" Cialdini & Trost (1998: 151).'Social norms are rules and standards that are understood by members of a group, they identity belief systems about our perceptions of how or not to behave. They are used to guide behaviour without the force of laws' Prislin & Wood (2008).
Social norms help us to apprehend uneasiness. They attribute to our judge ment of how the people around us or our peers behave. Research in social psychology perceptions of how social norms can strongly influence how we behave as individualsForyth (1993) points out that a norm often becomes salient only after it has been violated, and people who fail to comply with situationally - relevant norms without an explanation are generally subjected to negative evaluation, raging from pressure to change, through hostility to punishment, (Shachters 1951). As a society we tend to conform to changing ones behaviour due to the real or imagined influence of others" (Kierster & Kiester (1969)).There are two types of norms, descriptive and injunctive. Descriptive norms are sometimes labeled as "is" norms.
They will tend to tell us how other individuals in similar situations to ourselves behave. For example, if it is raining individuals are likely to wear a jacket or coat. Descriptive norms can be described as your typical/normal behaviour. While, injunctive norms, sometimes referred to as "ought", define what behavior should be implemented. For example, when somebody holds the door open for you it is polite to say thankyou.Social norms are used to develop various interventions in order to change a behaviour of a peer group in order for them to act correctly to the norm at the time.
There has been a number of ways in which behaviour has tried to change. Social norms marketing is a type of intervention which will try to change and educate current norms by using posters/adverts/campaigns to correct and educate a population. Listed by the New York Times magazine social norms marketing is one of the most significant ideas of 2001."Social norms marketing is based on applying social marketing techniques to social norms theory. The problem is that we often severely misperceive the typical behaviors or attitudes of our peers.
For example, if people believe that the majority of their peers smoke, then they are more likely to smoke. Using social norms marketing to inform people that the majority of their peers do not smoke, can potentially lead them to avoid smoking".Various studies have used social norms marketing to change the behaviour of individuals. Goldstein (2004) used a descriptive marketing approach in order to change desirable behaviour in a towel reuse programme using social normative information. The intervention used was a normative description message on a door sign of a hotel.
A variety of messages were used in order to see whether a personal normative message would be more effective than a standardized industry message which would have no meaning. An example of the standardized message would be "Help save the environment, by reusing ur towel during your stay". Whereas an example of the explicit personalised message was "Join your fellow guests in helping save the environment" followed by a statistic. A chi square tests revealed that descriptive norm conditions provided a significantly higher towel reuse rate of 44.
1% compared with the non social message who had a reduction rate of 35.1%. This shows that this study has been successful in changing desirable behaviour. Participants were more likely to follow the behaviour of the individuals who share a similar social identity to them the data suggests. Although the study is successful its results aren't highly significant, the towel reuse rate is only 44.
1%. Goldstein's study highlights the fact that destructive norms are useful in social norms marketing.Social norms marketing has been seen successful in reducing alcohol consumptions. Prochaska et al (2004) found that their multi-level intervention reduced binge drinking, police complaints and admissions for alcohol poisoning. Neighbours (2004) study on descriptive norms and the effiancy of a computer delivered personalised norms feedback intervention on reducing levels of alcohol consumption.
Neighbours used 252 students who were assigned with either a personal norm feedback treatment or no treatment at all. They were asked to answer questions on their own alcohol level consumption and their own opinion of alcohol consumption on other students. Later they were given an onscreen feedback on how much they drank and how much other students actually drank. Results showed that there was a reductions in binge drinking within 3-6 months after the intervention. This highlights an advantage of social norms marketing as being successful in changing behaviour long term. However the intervention used was a self report technique.
Participants answered questions which could result in social desirable answers leading to bias.However these studies can be criticised by their cross cultural differences. As we can see the studies above are all American based Universities/Colleges therefore its not certain that if the same studies were carried out in the UK the same or similar results would be obtained. "In the UK the legal age consent to buy alcohol is 18. Therefore they are able to openly drink openly and legally whereas in the US the consent is 21. By having the opportunity to observe their peers drinking behaviour at first hand UK students will observe their peers alcohol consumption" - John McAlaney & John McMahon (December 2007).
According to Scott Walters " college students tend to mispercieve the drinking norms on campus, thinking that other students drink more than they actually do". This could be a reason in why binge drinking is so high.As we can see there are many studies who would approve of social norms marketing calling it successful. However, a study carried out in order to protect the petrified wood from the forest have had mixed reviews.
Cialdini et al (2006) carried out a study using injunctive and descriptive norms in order to prevent the theft of petrified wood from the National Park. He placed various injunctive and descriptive messages across the park in order to change behaviour. An example of the injunctive would be " Please do not remove the petrified wood in the park" and then an example of descriptive "Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park". From this study we can see that by using descriptive messages the theft of the wood increased, therefore its not successful. In fact because we follow social norms we are more likely to adapt to the norm, seeing the descriptive message 'many past visitors have removed' gives individuals the idea that this is the norm to do. However, this study can be criticised on the fact that the study was carried out in a public park therefore we didn't know the behaviour before participants observed the injunctive and descriptive norm messages.
They could have had the behaviour to want to steal the petrified wood anyway. Therefore unable to establish a relationship between the intervention and the changed behaviour. This can be supported by further studies. According to Wechster et al (2003) "Social norms marking does not reduce alcohol levels in fact it can actually encourage students who were drinking less to actually drink more".Wechster used adverts in order to reduce alcohol consumption.Conclusion Social norms marketing and its success has had mixed reviews.
However, studies have mainly been successful in changing behaviour if it is done in an effective manner. With some studies it is impossible to establish a cause and effect relationship due to confounding variables. We are unable to successfully determine whether a change in behaviour is due to the intervention used or other factors affecting it. For example, in Neighbours (2004) the success rate could be due to the social desirable behaviors as the participants involved had to answer questions on the computer screen. They might not have answered honestly leading to bias answers.
Another point supporting this would be the study of Caldini. The study was carried out in a public park. Therefore, the participants who happened to be passing that day might already have had personalities which would give them a desire to take the petrified wood.Although it cant establish a subjective cause/effect relationship it has lead to some positive behaviour change. For example, In Goldsteins study there was an increase in towel reuse by 44%.
Social norms marketing has been successful in reducing alcohol levels in students as seen in Neighbours study.It is difficult for us to say whether social norms marketing has been successful as there are far to many various studies which have attempted to prove it is. Although Goldstein and Neighbours both found interventions successful, it was because of different intervention marketing. By looking at our studies it seems that different interventions work on different groups. For example, Goldstein found that descriptive norms were successful whereas Caldini noted that in fact descriptive messages are more likely to encourage the undesirable behaviour.
In order for social norm marketing to improve in the future more research is needed to be carried out on injunctive and descriptive norms. More research into this subject will lead us to discover what interventions would work best on changing certain types of behaviour. For example, if Calidini would have known this information he would have been more likely not to have used descriptive norm messages which would have meant the theft rate in petrified wood would have not increased.
