Citation

Sparkman G, Walton GM. Psychol. Sci. 2017; 28(11): 1663-1674.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Stanford University.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797617719950

PMID

28961062

Abstract

It is well known that people conform to normative information about other people's current attitudes and behaviors. Do they also conform to dynamic norms-information about how other people's behavior is changing over time? We investigated this question in three online and two field experiments. Experiments 1 through 4 examined high levels of meat consumption, a normative and salient behavior that is decreasing in the United States. Dynamic norms motivated change despite prevailing static norms, increasing interest in eating less meat (Experiments 1-3) and doubling meatless orders at a café (Experiment 4). Mediators included the anticipation of less meat eating in the future ( preconformity) and the inference that reducing meat consumption mattered to other people (Experiments 2 and 3). In Experiment 5, we took advantage of a natural comparison to provide evidence that dynamic norms can also strengthen social-norm interventions when the static norm is positive; a positive dynamic norm resulted in reduced laundry loads and water use over 3 weeks during a drought.

Language: en

Keywords

health; intervention; motivation; open materials; social influences; sustainability