What other people do
Social norms
Social-norms interventions communicate what other people in a relevant comparison group are doing. The classic form is a letter or message that says, in effect, 'most people in your situation pay on time / vaccinate / conserve energy.' The mechanism is descriptive: receivers update their sense of what is normal, and adjust their own behavior toward the norm.
5
Experiments
3
Policy areas
2006–2019
Year span
5 / 5
Positive
When it works
When the actual behavior in the comparison group is more compliant than the recipient assumes, and when the comparison group is genuinely meaningful (your neighborhood, not 'all Americans'). Most reliable for low-effort, frequently-performed behaviors where conformity is socially cheap.
Watch out for
Backfire effects: if the recipient is already above average, learning that 'most people' do less may pull them down toward the mean. Always include a sanction-of-approval cue (a smiley face, a positive frame) for the above-average cohort. Also: norm messages that don't match reality erode credibility quickly.
Social norms across policy areas
Energy & Environment· 3 experiments
- Positive
Social Comparison Home Water Reports
Multiple US water utilities · United States (multi-site) · 2014
Effect: −5% water consumption; effects largest among high-usage households
- Positive
Solar Panel Adoption Peer Effects
Yale University / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Connecticut, United States · 2014
Effect: Each additional installation within 0.5 miles raises probability of neighbor adoption by 0.78 percentage points; effect concentrated within 0.5 miles and decays with distance
- Positive
Opower Home Energy Reports
Opower (now Oracle Utilities) / 12 US utilities · United States (multi-site) · 2012
Effect: −2.0% electricity consumption; effect equivalent to 11–20% temporary price increase