Preferences and descriptive norms Flashcards
What are social norms? (2)
standards of acceptable behaviour that are shared by members of a group
rules and shared beliefs
Why did social norms likely develop? (2)
- learn adaptive behaviours from others
- learn to coordinate/cooperate with others
What are 2 kinds of sharing norms?
- proactive sharing
- demand sharing
What are individual preferences?
dispositions to act in a particular way (not the same as liking better)
What are social preferences?
preferences that take into account other people, their behaviour, beliefs and what affects them
What is a reference network?
people whom we care about when making decisions about how to act
What are descriptive norms?
beliefs about which behaviours are typically performed by members of a specific reference group (to which people conform)
How does CLTS try to change descriptive norms?
convening a community meeting and eliciting public commitments to build latrines
What was the effect of descriptive norms on latrine construction after CLTS?
built there own more if they believed others built latrines - CLTS increased this belief
How much do self-efficacy and descriptive norms mediate the effectiveness of CLTS for increasing toilet construction?
- self-efficacy = partially
- descriptive norms = fully
What did Goldstein et al (2008) find when they told people that others in the hotel also reused their towels (compared to just telling them to reuse them)?
more likely to reuse them
Which towel reusing message was the most effective in Goldstein et al’s (2008) study? What does this suggest?
saying guests in the same room reused the towels
people respond more strongly to more ‘local’ descriptive norms
What did Agerstrom et al (2016) find when telling participants people in their university or universities in general (compared to no reference group) donated to charity? (2)
- donation rates were higher in both descriptive norm conditions than the control condition
- donation rates were highest with the more local reference group
