PSY2001 W10 Social Influences on Helath (L) Flashcards
and Environnemental Behaviours
What is the influence of social modelling on health behaviours
[empircal research]
Eating behaviours: review reported that social modelling influenced food choice or food intake (Cruwys et al. 2015)
Cigarette smoking ( Harakeh et al. 2007)
What are descriptive norms?
What people around you do, contrast with the concept of subjective norms
What are injunctive norms?
subjective norm
reflecting what other’s think (not what they actually do)
What factors moderate social infleunces on health and envionrmental behaviours?
modelling, social norms, social facilitation, group pressures, social support
How effective of social norm-based interventions to change health and environmental behaviours?
Social norm-based interventions can backfire, resulting in a boomerang effect.
Care is needed when applying social norm-based messages to interventions to promote engagement in pro-health and pro-environmental behaviours.
What are some social norm theoretical approaches?
The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).
Focus Theory of Normative Conduct (Cialdini et al., 1990)
Theory of Normative Behaviour (Lapinski & Rimal, 2005)
What is pro-health/environmental behaviours?
Purposeful action or behaviour that can reduce a negative impact on health or the environment
Why should we promote pro-health/environmental behaviours?
Promote health, well-being, quality of life, longevity (e.g. handwashing, alcohol intake, smoking, physical activity, diet, using sunscreen, attending health checks etc.).
How does social influences impact behaviour?
Change in thoughts/feelings/attitudes/behaviours that resultfrom interaction with another individual or a group. Engagement in those behaviours are influenced by others
What are some different types of social influences?
modelling (mimicking behaviour), social norms, social facilitation, group pressures, social support.
How does Modelling affect alcohol intake?
Experimental study using a naturalistic bar setting.
Drink orders: confederate ordered first and drank either:
1. Two fizzy drinks (Control)
2. One alcohol drink and two fizzy drinks (light drinking)
3. Three or four alcohol drinks (heavy drinking)
DV: alcoholic drinks consumed.
Results: Participants in the heavy condition consumed significantly more alcohol compared to participants in the control and light drinking condition (p < .001).
How does the influence of social modelling vary ?
The influence of social modelling is affected by individual factors such as a high need for social approval, as well as group identification.
Depending on:
High need for social acceptance [low self-esteem and high empathy associated with greated modelling (Robinson et al.2011)]
Body weight [greater modelling if the social other is the same weight as the participant)
What are some explanations of social modeling?
Social approval and Informational influence (accurate decision making)
How does informational influence expain social modelling?
accurate decision making.
Others provide a point of reference for appropriate behaviour, automatic mimicry. Mimic and conform to those with whom we identify, communicating liking and a desire to affiliate
How does social approval expain social modelling?
conformity to a social model is more pronnounced when concerns about affiliation are increased.
What are social norms?
Cialdini & Trost, 1998
Social norms are unwritten rules about how to behave
What are the three types of norms?
Descriptive (‘is’ norms), Injunctive (‘ought to’ norms) and prescriptive vs proscriptive
What is the descriptive norm?
‘is’ norms
Describe one group and distinguish it from other groups. Perceptions about what other people tend to do.
What is a prescriptive norm?
Prescriptive: (how we should behave) focus on what others do, encouraged to do, or approve of doing
What is a Poscriptive norm?
Proscriptive: (prohibitive) - focus on what others do NOT do, or are discouraged from doing, or behaviours that are not approved.
What is a injunctive norm?
‘ought to’ norms
Perceptions of what others approve of.
What are the types of delivery of social norms?
social norms marketing, personalised normative feedback (PNF)
What is the towel reuse study about descriptive norm messages?
A descriptive norm message increased towel reuse compared to a control message. Similar effects found for other pro-environmental and health behaviours (Robinson et al., 2013; Yamin et al., 2019).
How does social norms influence binge drinking?
Inaccurate perceptions: Students overestimate how much peers drink and peer support for drinking. Drives problematic drinking behaviour (Borsari, & Carey, 2003). Social norms widely developed and applied to reduce problematic student drinking.
What was the study about intentinos to down drinks about?
Smith et al 2018
Descriptive norms and problematic drinking.
Four conditions:
* No messages
* Campaign only (e.g. Think before you drink)
* Descriptive norm only (based on data e.g. 65% of students at this uni do not down drinks on a night out)
* Campaign + descriptive norm
DV: intentions to down drinks
Results: A sensible drinking campaign with a descriptive norm message reduced intentions to down drinks in students.
What are the strenghts of Smith et al. 2018 binge drinking study?
Experimental design - establish effect of descriptive norm.
What were the limitations of the Smith et al. 2018 study on binge drinking?
Measured intentions, no measure of actual downing behaviour.
No data collected on participants’ individual alcohol intake.
Small convenience sample.
No baseline data on attitudes or current consumption.
Ethical considerations.
Can we use descriptive norms to encourage sustainable diets at the university?
Aligns with other findings whereby descriptive social norms are not always effective.
Results: No significant differences were found (all p > 0.05).
What was the study of sun protection and injunctive norms?
Perceptions that other women thought tanned skin was perceived as positive was overestimated. Perceptions about support to use sun cream was underestimated.
Measures (baseline, intervention 4-weeks post-intervention)
Intentions: “I plan to stay in the shade as much as possible when I am outside”
Self-reported sun protection behaviours: use of sunscreen, protective clothing and shade.
Information:
Immedietaly post-test: P in injunctive norm condition reported greater intentions to engage in sun protective behavoiur compared to control.
4 week follow up: injunctive group still had stronger intentions to engage in sun protective behaviour and self-rerorted more use of sun hats compared to control
When are descriptive norms useful and effective?
informational influence
Guide on the appropriate way to act. Tend to be more effective in unfamiliar or ambiguous situation (Griskevicius et al., 2016)
When are nijunctive norms effects ?
Social approval. Enable affiliation with social group.
Can social norms messages backfire?
Miller & Prentice, 2016
Yes. Social norm messages have resulted in mixed findings.
Boomerang effect.
Engagement in the targeted desired behaviours reduces for some individuals AFTER the social norm message intervention.
What is the boomerang effect?
refers to unintended negative consequences of social norm messages
Why does the boomerang effect happen?
1.Realise an undesirable behaviour is more common than realised: “Most people use more water than they need”
2.Individuals who already engage in the desirable behaviour reduce it to avoid being a sucker to free-riders.
What are the implications of the boomerang effect on interventions?
Social norm message-based interventions need to be designed with care to avoid boomerang effects.
Message framing:
* Praise those who engage in the behaviour rather than risk resentment.
* Avoid inadvertently promoting an undesirable behaviour.
Target only those who do not engage in the desired behaviour (or engage in low levels).
How does share group membership affect the influence of group norms?
The influence of group norms are stronger if individuals identify with the referent group.
Group membership can also explain reactance against group norms if the group norm made salient is from an undesirable outgroup.
What is the focus theory of normative conduct ?
Cialdini et al 1990
Motives for conforming: informational, social approval and positive self-image
What is the Theory of Normative Behaviour ?
Lapinski & Rimal, 2005
The influence of descriptive norms is moderated by injunctive norms, group membership, behaviour identification and outcome expectations.
