Principle 3: Change Social Norms
People are susceptible to peer pressure. When individuals feel that their neighbors expect them to act in a more climate-friendly way, those individuals are more likely to take science-consistent climate action.
The challenge to be addressed:
Individuals do not necessarily think that climate change will affect them or their immediate communities. Its effects can seem distant (Leiserowitz et al. 2013). At the same time, knowledge does not itself motivate action. Individuals see as desirable many behaviors they nonetheless avoid.
The climate science:
Norming works because our decision-making and behavior are affected by the actions and beliefs of others (Cialdini and Goldstein 2004). Social norms are the “predominant behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and codes of conduct of a group. As perceived, they influence the expectations, opinions, and actions of group members and facilitate social coordination and solidarity within the group” (Cialdini and Jacobson 2021). Unsurprisingly then, social norms affect climate policy preferences (Alló and Loureiro 2014) and have been shown to promote household energy conservation (Allcott 2011), reduce the use of towels in hotels (Cialdini 2005), and lower water consumption in homes (Ferraro and Price 2013; Bernedo, Ferraro, and Price 2014).
By identifying them as common or uncommon or as approved or disapproved, social norms can both describe and enjoin behaviors. Messaging that shows that descriptive and injunctive norms are aligned is generally more effective than communication relying on one type alone. The direction of change in prevalence of a behavior (that is, the trend in the social norm) can affect individuals’ behavior even when the level of that behavior in the group itself is relatively low (Cialdini and Jacobson 2021).