Consumers can process information containing social norms at different cognitive deliberation levels. This paper investigates the effect of cognitive deliberation for both descriptive and injunctive norms. The experimental study examines the consequences for attitudes and behavioral intentions of these two norm formulations under different levels of deliberation. Results show that (1) cognitive load limits the influence of both norm formulations, and (2) cognitive deliberation increases the effect of descriptive and decreases the effect of injunctive norms. The positive and negative thoughts made salient by the information are shown to lead to these consequences. Marketers therefore need to consider the context and channels in which social norms are communicated, as this can affect the motivation, ability, and/or opportunity of consumers to process the information.
Social norms shape consumer behavior. However, it is not clear under what circumstances social norms are more versus less effective in doing so. This gap is addressed through an interdisciplinary meta-analysis examining the impact of social norms on consumer behavior across a wide array of contexts involving the purchase, consumption, use, and disposal of products and services, including socially approved (e.g., fruit consumption, donations) and disapproved (e.g., smoking, gambling) behaviors. Drawing from reactance theory and based on a cross-disciplinary data set of 250 effect sizes from research spanning 1978–2019 representing 112,478 respondents from 22 countries, the effects of five categories of moderators of the effectiveness of social norms on consumer behavior are examined: (1) target behavior characteristics, (2) communication factors, (3) consumer costs, (4) environmental factors, and (5) methodological characteristics. The findings suggest that while the effect of social norms on approved behavior is stable across time and cultures, their effect on disapproved behavior has grown over time and is stronger in survival and traditional cultures. Communications identifying specific organizations or close group members enhance compliance with social norms, as does the presence of monetary costs. The authors leverage their findings to offer managerial implications and a future research agenda for the field.
Abstract. In the past decades, marketing practitioners have embraced social norms as a powerful instrument of influencing consumers’ behavior. An important distinction has been made between descriptive norms (what most others do) and injunctive norms (what others approve of), and this meta-analysis across 297 studies examines the effects of these types of social norms on consumer decision-making processes. We argue that descriptive norms directly influence behavior, and consequently that their effect on behavior should be stronger than that of injunctive norms. Injunctive norms, by contrast, should be more strongly related to intentions than descriptive norms. Results of the meta-analysis support these predictions, and furthermore provide new insights into the moderating effects of aspects of the norm (specificity of the norm, norm source) and of the target person (gender, age).
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