Social norm appeals attempt to change behavior by modifying the prevailing view that a particular, usually harmful, behavior is less prevalent or less approved of in certain social contexts. These messages have been widely used, such as in safe-drinking campaigns targeted towards college students, but reviews of such efforts have been mixed. The present review used meta-analytic techniques to clarify the effects of social norm manipulations by synthesizing findings from 110 articles. We found consistent support for the effectiveness of social norm manipulations across various outcomes, although effect sizes overall tended to be small. There was also evidence that injunctive norms, though underutilized, may be more effective in changing behavior than previously considered. Moderator analyses demonstrated effects for methodological, sample, and message variables that offer insights into how norms function. The analysis also revealed significant heterogeneity, which underscores the need for more standardization in this area.
The narrative enjoyment and appreciation rationale (NEAR) builds on dual-process logic to distinguish these two forms of audience response to media entertainment shaped by either an intuitive or deliberative processing system. Three message features are critical in determining how these systems govern response: (1) the absence or presence of intuition conflict in the narrative, (2) the extent to which different intuitions are made salient (i.e., emphasized in the plot), and (3) the satisfaction/thwarting of those salient intuitions, where satisfaction refers to reward for acts that conform to intuitions, and thwarting refers to the inverse of this. When all salient intuitive needs are satisfied by entertainment experience, positive affect produced by intuitive processes is labeled enjoyment. By comparison, when the entertainment experience satisfies the most salient intuitive needs, but not all salient intuitive needs, positive affect produced by deliberative processing is labeled appreciation.
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