Descriptive Social Norms as Underappreciated Sources of Social Control

By Robert B. Cialdini. 2007

617 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1584a7185477dfebeb4e484a7d3fea3cc2e8207f

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Citations in the corpus

Greening organizations through leaders' influence on employees' pro-environmental behaviors (2013, background): “…leadership Descriptive norms refer to people’s perceptions of what most others do (Cialdini, 2007), and these perceptions can motivate behavior by conveying important social information about effective and adaptable behavior (Cialdini, 2007; Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevisius, 2008).”
Motivating Organizations to Learn (2015, background): “Similarly, scholarship on social norms indicates that individuals tend to revise their idiosyncratic views and approaches as they gain information about others’ behaviors through initial group interactions (Cialdini, 2007; Cialdini, Bator, & Guadagno, 1999).”
How Hope and Doubt Affect Climate Change Mobilization (2019, background): “Other research has demonstrated the importance of addressing perceived social norms in the diffusion of environmentally friendly behaviors more broadly and highlights the effectiveness of these frames in increasing pro-environmental behaviors (Cialdini, 2007).”
Peer Norm Salience for Academic Achievement, Prosocial Behavior, and Bullying (2015, background): “This research tradition builds on theories of normative influence (Cialdini, 2007; Cialdini et al., 1991; Deutsch & Gerard, 1955) suggesting that behavior that is descriptively normative is likely to be associated with acceptance.”
A Re‐Explication of Social Norms, Ten Years Later (2015, background): “They have been shown to exert both a direct (e.g., Cialdini, 2007; Lapinski, Rimal, DeVries, & Lee, 2007; Mollen, Rimal, Ruiter, & Kok, 2013) and indirect, through moderation and mediation (Rimal, 2008), influence on behavior.”
Charitable Intent: A Moral or Social Construct? A Revised Theory of Planned Behavior Model (2011, result): “These results seem to contradict frequent recommendations made on the underappreciated role of descriptive norms as a form of social control (e.g., Cialdini 2005, 2007), where it is assumed that descriptive norms trigger norm-congruent behavior as in; “if a lot of other people are doing it, it is…”
Social norms and pro-environmental behavior: A review of the evidence (2017, background): “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).”
Payments for Ecosystem Services: Rife With Problems and Potential—For Transformation Towards Sustainability (2017, background): “Even more interestingly, the homeowners’ conservation efforts increased after (later) being told that the newspaper could not run the article—apparently because the process had cemented their identity as a conserver of energy (Pallak et al., 1980; Cialdini, 2007).”
Climate change skepticism among adolescents (2015, background): “Descriptive social norms concern perceptions of what important others do or think, and have been found to be very important when it comes to explaining pro-environmental behavior (Cialdini 2007; Nolan et al. 2008).”
Teachers become more autonomy supportive after they believe it is easy to do (2016, positive): “This is because a normative belief arises out of and reflects the descriptive norm that guides people's (i.e., teachers') thinking and acting, and normative beliefs are particularly difficult to change (Cialdini, 2007; Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1991).”
Sales and sincerity: The role of relational framing in word-of-mouth marketing (2008, background): “Previous research showed that the activation of norms related to a certain environment, can have an influence on behaviors (e.g., Cialdini, 2003, 2007).”
Questionable Research Practices Revisited (2016, background): “As numerous studies showed across different domains, communicating descriptive norms (It happens all the time) that are at odds with proscriptive norms (You should not do it) can undermine the influence of the proscriptive norm on individuals’ behavior (Cialdini, 2007; Schultz et al., 2014). In clos”