Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 140, October 2017, Pages 1-13
Ecological Economics

Social Norms and Pro-environmental Behavior: A Review of the Evidence

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.04.017Get rights and content

Abstract

In light of the growing attention that social norm interventions have garnered as policy tools, we review the current body of evidence on their effectiveness with respect to pro-environmental behaviors. We identify the various conceptualizations of social norms currently in use and inventory the experimental economics and social psychology literature that has examined the impacts of social norm interventions on pro-environmental behavior. For each study included in this inventory, we note several contextual features, the data collection and analytical methods used, and any significant main effects attributed to the social norm intervention. We also review several theoretical models of behavior that incorporate social norms. Based on this empirical and theoretical review, we draw a number of policy implications and identify avenues for future research on the role of social norms with respect to pro-environmental behavior.

Introduction

A vast body of evidence demonstrates that social norms impact a wide range of behaviors, including conservation activities, charitable donations, alcohol consumption, and diet and exercise habits. According to this research, it appears that what other people do and think matters a great deal to individuals, and moreover, that social norm dynamics can have important implications for societal outcomes (Nyborg et al., 2016). Social information can affect individuals for a variety of reasons: people may wish to fit in (or on the contrary, stand out), avoid social disapproval, or seek social esteem. People may also take the behavior of others as an indication of what is most effective, or they may expect reciprocity in exchange for their own conformity. Paradoxically, despite the many reasons why people may follow social norms, it has also been shown that people tend to underestimate the influence of norms on their own behavior (Cialdini, 2007). Findings such as these indicate that social norms tend to operate through fast, intuitive, and emotional mental heuristics. What's more, emerging evidence also points to the possibility that the importance of social norms with respect to behavior has been underestimated by the research community in the past, as well. Indeed, social norms have been found to be responsible for some of the explanatory power previously attributed to elements in the Theory of Planned Behavior (Thøgersen, 2014) and have also been found to explain some of the effectiveness of the default option framing bias (Everett et al., 2015).

While the study of norms originated in sociology, over time it has also come to be emphasized in a variety of domains ranging from neuroscience and business ethics to public health. Along with the recent import of many psychological insights into the field of economics, social norms have increasingly become of interest to economists, as well. In this review, we draw from work in social psychology and economics, and as such, we treat conformity to social norms from the individualistic perspective of these disciplines. Opp (1979) provides an early comparison of how economics and psychology approach the study of social norms, suggesting that hypotheses from both disciplines can complement each other in advancing the body of knowledge on the subject. This complementarity is apparent given that economic theories tend to excel in generalizability, while psychological theories tend to excel in explanatory power. He notes that although the “structural-individualistic” approach employed in economics (i.e. expected utility theory) requires some assumptions, it permits researchers to state very specific hypotheses regarding the conditions for conformity to social norms, and thus constitutes a powerful method by which hypotheses from social psychology can also be tested. Additionally, he notes that whereas social norm theories in social psychology address both the information-norm relationship (that is, the psychological process of the formation of norms) as well as the norm-behavior relationship, economic theories are limited to addressing the latter, as expected utility theory explains actions, not motives (Opp, 1979). We note, however, that the methodological developments that have been made in experimental economics in recent years have improved the capacity of economics to address the motivational elements that underlie behavior.

Because social norms are implicated in such a wide range of behaviors, it is hardly surprising that they have become the subject of attention by scholars in such diverse domains. In this paper we synthesize common definitions, inventory empirical findings on the effect of social norms on pro-environmental behaviors, and review several theories that incorporate social norms as determinants of individual behavior. In light of this empirical and theoretical review, we derive practical implications for policy-making and offer some useful directions for future research. The aim of this paper is to bring together disparate elements of previous literature in order to reach a more holistic picture of the importance of social norms in pro-environmental behaviors. As a whole, research in the area demonstrates that social norms have significant impacts on behavior and that the degree of these impacts may be affected by a variety of factors including characteristics pertaining to the individual, the norm evoked, the implied reference group, and the social and environmental context in which the decision takes place.

Section snippets

Definitions

Social norms have been used to refer both to common behaviors themselves, as well as to the beliefs that support conformity to these behaviors. In most of the recent literature, however, social norms are generally understood to be shared rules of conduct that are partly sustained by approval and disapproval (Elster, 1989). They have been described as the widespread convergence of the “unplanned, unexpected result of individuals' interactions…that specify what is acceptable and what is not in a

Empirical Results

An abundance of factors have been found to influence the extent to which normative information impacts behavior. These factors generally relate to the characteristics of the individual (e.g. presence of intrinsic motivation,1

Theories of Conformity

Given ample evidence of the effect of norms on behavior, we examine the mechanisms that have been proposed to explain these effects. The first part of this section outlines prominent theoretical models in the social psychology literature, and the second part presents several models that have been developed in the economics literature. We review theories from both approaches to social norms, and compare them from the perspective of the “structural-individualistic” approach taken in economics.

Lessons and Implications for Policymaking

Given the overall effectiveness of social norms in encouraging pro-environmental behaviors, as evidenced by the studies included in this review, a first lesson that emerges is that social norm interventions can indeed be an effective tool for behavior change by taking advantage of latent ‘behavioral capital’ (see Beretti et al., 2013). In this section, we derive practical implications from our review of the empirical and theoretical literature and augment these insights by synthesizing other

Conclusions and Future Research

From our review of the impacts of various types of social norm interventions on pro-environmental behaviors, we find that these interventions are effective at inducing significant changes in behavior, and that descriptive norms seem to demonstrate particularly consistent effects in this regard. Given the degree of heterogeneity in treatments used, moderating variables, and behaviors considered, we have chosen to report only the presence or absence of main effects for two reasons. First, such a

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the University of Montpellier and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. We are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for their useful comments on earlier versions of this work. We are also grateful to Sophie Clot, Raphaële Préget, Douadia Bougherara, Angela Sutan, members of the LAMETA working group on social norms, and participants at the 2015 Social Norms and Institutions Conference for their input at various stages of this work. Any

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