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Given the seriousness of environmental issues, academic research has proposed social norms as an effective policy tool to encourage a wide range of pro-environmental behaviors, including green consumption. However, tangible evidence of the effectiveness of the social norm approach for green consumption behaviors is unreconciled, raising controversy about such a strategy. Considering that social norm interventions are only effective when targeted at the right consumers, this study aims to focus on exploring the role of individual difference factors, namely, social power value-, social face value- and independence orientations, in clarifying the effects of social norms on green consumption behaviors.

The study uses hierarchical ordinary least squares regression to test the hypotheses with survey data from 269 consumers in Southeast Asia.

The study reveals that perceived social norms positively predict green consumption behaviors, providing additional evidence for the effectiveness of the social norms. It also finds that the perceived social norms have a stronger impact on the green consumption behaviors of consumers who value social power and social face. However, the effect becomes weaker for consumers with a strong tendency toward independence.

This study highlights the importance of individual difference factors in explaining the effectiveness of social norms. The current findings also offer insightful implications for designing more effective social influence approaches for constructing green consumption culture.

The purpose of this paper is to present details of a large-scale experiment that evaluated the impact of communicating two types of feedback to householders regarding their domestic electricity consumption: feedback on their own consumption and feedback of both their own consumption and that of others in their locality.

Digital technologies were used to automatically measure and communicate the electricity consumption of 316 UK residents for a period of 16 weeks. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: one involving no feedback; one involving feedback about a household's own usage, and one involving a household's own usage plus social norms feedback (the average consumption of others in the locality). At the end of the study, a selection of participants took part in interviews or focus groups.

Both types of feedback (individual and individual-plus-social-norms) led to reductions in consumption of about 3 per cent. Those receiving social norms feedback were significantly more likely to engage with the information provided. However, the social norms information had no additional impact on consumption. Survey and interview data confirmed that participants from both conditions had been encouraged to adopt new energy-saving practices. The study concludes that near real-time individual feedback can be sufficient for usage reduction if it is provided in a historical format. It also suggests that the impact of social norms information may previously have been confounded with that of individual feedback.

This is the first time that a controlled experiment in the field of domestic electricity consumption has compared the impact of real-time social norm information with that of information that only contains individual household usage.

This paper aims to investigate whether application of a community-based social marketing (CBSM) principle, namely, increasing the visibility of a target behaviour in the community, can change social norms surrounding the behaviour.

A repeated measures quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation’s Walk to School 2013 programme. The target population for the survey were caregivers of primary school children aged between 5-12 years old. The final sample size across the three online surveys administered was 102 respondents.

The results suggest that the programme increased caregivers’ perceptions that children in their community walked to and from school and that walking to and from school is socially acceptable.

The study contributes to addressing the recent call for research examining the relationship between CBSM principles and programme outcomes. Further, the results provide insight for enhancing the social norms approach, which has traditionally relied on changing social norms exclusively through media campaigns.

This paper aims to examine motorcycle driving norms and their implications for social marketing practice. It investigates whether misperceptions of descriptive norms related to motorcycle speeding behaviour are prevalent among young motorcyclists, and whether there is an association between these misperceptions with their speeding behaviour.

A cross-sectional survey of 541 young motorcyclists was carried out as the second phase of a larger project, which examined the role of social norms related to road safety attitudes and behaviours.

The results showed misperceptions of perceived speeding norms among both male and female young motorcyclists. There was an association between normative misperceptions and speeding behaviour, and between speeding behaviour and approval to speeding behaviour by young motorcyclists. In addition, peer presence was found to moderate the relationship between misperceptions of speeding norms and speeding behaviour.

The study contributes to addressing the call for study of social norms marketing and health risks in non-Western contexts. Further, the results provide support for social marketers to consider the use of social norms approach in designing social marketing campaigns to promote safe motorcycle driving behaviours.

Digital applications and thus new digital intervention possibilities such as gamification have made their way into our everyday lives. This paper aims to examine to what extent social norm information (SNI) in a game element feedback may increase eco-friendly food choices.

The effect of social norm-based feedback (SNBF), provided by a “GreenMeter”, was investigated experimentally. The SNI was integrated into the feedback by comparing the subject’s GreenMeter rating with either an injunctive, descriptive or combined SNI.

Injunctive SNBF was found to be effective in encouraging people to make an eco-friendly food purchasing decision. Combining injunctive with descriptive SNBF or simply providing descriptive SNBF was also found to be better than no intervention at all.

To take further advantage of social norms to make gamification more effective, additional studies are needed in which long-term effects on behavior are investigated, as well as other game elements and target groups are taken into account.

Many people want to choose food that is more eco-friendly but often struggle because of deeply ingrained habits or strong social influences. Consequently, their intentions do not translate into changes in their behavior. Alternative motivational, gamification approaches, like SNBF, may be considered when designing Web-based applications.

The study provides insights into the effectiveness of SNI going beyond text-based interventions. Considering SNI in a specific design of gamification (“GreenMeter”) provided insights into how they could be integrated into dynamic, digital, behavioral change techniques to increase eco-friendly food choices.

This paper aims to elucidate perceptions of safe driving and social norms in relation to driving motorbikes in the Vietnamese context.

A series of focus groups was undertaken in relation to driving practices from a number of groups: adolescents, families and adult males and females. The discussion centred on how driving behaviours were socialised within the various groups.

The research highlighted some very interesting social dynamics in relation to how safe driving habits are established and supported within the social context. In particular, the separation of descriptive and injunctive norms and the role such norms play in socialising driving behaviours, safe or otherwise.

The implications for social marketing practice are considerable, especially in the Vietnamese context where injunctive norms are difficult to portray, given the dynamics of the media landscape. Social marketing campaigns will need to have a broader consideration of how to establish descriptive norms, bearing in mind the social milieu in which the behaviours occur.

This research is the first of its kind in the Vietnamese context. While much practice-led innovation is occurring in the region, there is little extant research on the topic of social norms and the socialisation of behaviours within the Southeast Asian region.

The aim of this study is to apply the concept of social norm dynamics to explain how corporate governance soft law is enforced.

Using data of German listed stock companies and of economic media coverage between 2001 and 2010, the authors observe the complex relationship between sanctions and behavior in the social context of corporate governance soft law.

The authors find the public discussion of normative demands related to corporate governance issues increases if firms do not comply with the German Corporate Governance Code. The authors show that groups of actors, such as DAX companies, represent the addressees of normative demands, i.e. targets of expectations about what is appropriate and what is not. The authors also find that normative demands tend to be personalized, as public discussion is greater when initiated by a specific individual or firm. Finally, the authors demonstrate that social control in terms of public sanctioning positively influences a firm’s compliance with the soft law whereby negative statements (disapproval) outweigh the effects of positive statements (approval).

We corroborate the social character of normative demands in the context of corporate governance soft law, and contribute to a better understanding of why soft law can work, despite it having no legally binding force. The results of our study suggest that sanction mechanisms in the context of social norms underpin the strength of soft law as an alternative to, or extension of, hard law.

This study aims to investigate the applicability of ethical ideologies reflected by two dimensions of moral idealism and relativism, together with social norms, to the context of digital piracy.

This study used data from a survey of college students and conducted a series of hierarchical regression analyses.

This study found that digital piracy intention was dissimilar among four different ethical groups. Injunctive norm was a critical factor that affected internet users’ intention of digital piracy, yet it was valid only for situationists and absolutists. For subjectivists and exceptionists, individual differences represented by ego-involvement and past experience of digital piracy played a more critical role than social norms in explaining digital piracy intention.

This study is the first attempt to apply the dimensions of moral idealism and relativism to the context of digital piracy. Thus, it suggests that more tailored approaches are recommended to reduce digital piracy for internet users’ varied ethical ideologies.

Despite more than half a century of academic research, relatively few methods have been shown to reliably improve intergroup relations in the real world. This paper aims to use a social marketing approach to design a pro-diversity intervention in a university setting.

We conducted extensive qualitative, quantitative and observational background research to identify elements that would increase the effectiveness of the intervention. Focus groups and surveys allowed us to identify a target audience, target behaviors and the relevant barriers and benefits.

The background research suggested increasing inclusive behavior would have a greater impact than reducing discriminatory behavior. Based on this research, this paper determined an optimal target audience was students who had relatively positive attitudes toward diversity but engaged in few inclusive behaviors. This paper used relevant theories from the behavioral sciences to design an intervention that promoted a small set of inclusive behaviors and that addressed the relevant barriers and benefits. The intervention took the form of a single page of targeted messages that instructors can add to their course syllabi. The page communicates injunctive and descriptive norms, highlights the benefits of behaving inclusively and provides concrete behavioral advice.

The research applies the social marketing approach to a novel domain. This approach represents a new way to advance diversity, equity and inclusion through promoting inclusive and reducing discriminatory behavior.

Notes that people use self‐presentation strategies to enhance their self‐image, and in doing so, they rely on norms. Raises the question of the desirability and feasibility of giving training to individuals in normative self‐presentation, where the idea is to teach the trainees to refer to judgment norms when responding in formal evaluation situations (like job interviews). Three judgment norms are used as illustration: internality, self‐sufficiency, and individual anchoring. The materials for training in these three norms are tested using the methods and techniques of the socionormative approach, and briefly presented. The ethical implications of this type of training are discussed.