A Social Norms Intervention Going Wrong: Boomerang Effects from Descriptive Norms Information

Abstract

Abstract:A large body of research supports the idea of social norms communication promoting pro-social and pro-environmental behaviour. This paper investigates social norms communication in the field. Signs prompting consumers about sustainable seafood labels and informing them about other consumers' sustainable choices were displayed in supermarkets in Norway and Germany. Seafood sales (sustainably labelled versus unlabelled products) were observed before, during, and after the implementation of the signs. The expected change towards more sustainable choices was generally not found. In Norway, the choice of sustainable seafood increased in the prompt-only condition, but the effect was neutralised when social norms information was added. In Germany, social norm messages lead to a decline in sustainable choices compared to baseline, a boomerang effect. Overall, an increase in the purchase of seafood (both sustainably labelled and unlabelled) was noted during the intervention. A second study was carried out to further explore the finding that consumers were mainly primed with "seafood" as a food group. In a laboratory setting, participants were confronted with stereotypical food pictures, combined with short sentences encouraging different consumption patterns. Subsequently, they were asked to choose food products in a virtual shop. Confirming the findings of Study 1, participants chose more of the groceries belonging to the food group they were primed with. These studies suggest that social norms interventions-recently often perceived as "the Holy Grail" for behaviour change-are not as universally applicable as suggested in the literature. According to this study, even descriptive norm messages can produce boomerang effects.

The role of normative prompts and norm support cues in promoting light-switching behavior: A field study

“…For example, using simple pro-ecological messages has been proven to be less effective when compared to using messages that refer to social norms (e.g., De Groot, Abrahamse, & 5 Jones, 2013;Nolan, Schultz, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2008). Overall, normative information is considered to be a highly-effective type of environmental appeal (Cialdini, 2003) typically implemented by signs (Richter, Thøgersen, & Klöckner, 2018), and therefore will be thoroughly addressed in the presented research.…”

“…For example, watching someone throwing litter in a trash bin (positive descriptive norm-support cue) in an already littered setting (negative descriptive norm-support cue) may not restrain an individual from littering, in contrast to a similar situation in an environment where there is no litter (Reno, Cialdini & Kallgren, 1993). Moreover, descriptive norm cues that address the common occurrence of norm-violating behavior may lead to even higher rates of occurrence (boomerang effect; Richter et al, 2018;Winter 2006). However, people not only can be de-motivated by descriptive normconflict, but norm-conflict can encourage people to take action.…”

When descriptive norms backfire: attitudes induce undesirable consequences during disaster preparation

“…The suppression effect in Study 2 was the first evidence that descriptive norms backfire even when the majority act in a desirable way. Richter et al (2018) found that the boomerang effect occurred when descriptive normative message stated that less than half of others performed the designated behavior; however, we showed that even descriptive norms in which more than half perform the behavior can induce adverse effects.…”

“…We investigated not only the promotive effect of descriptive norms but also the pitfalls of them, such as the boomerang effect (Richter, Thøgersen, & Klöckner, 2018;Schultz et al, 2007).…”

Policy Acceptance of Low-Consumption Governance Approaches: The Effect of Social Norms and Hypocrisy

“…The failings of a social norm manipulation could be interpreted in light of recent resea Richter, Thøgersen and Klöckner [63] who reliably replicated the appearance of a 'Boomera on the social norms manipulation in their study on sustainable consumption choice supermarket. This effect is when the target behaviour of the social norm manipulation resu increased uptake of the behaviour that one is seeking to reduce.…”