An Intergroup Reconceptualisation of Social Norms in Behavioural Change

Abstract

The current climate emergency calls for effective, efficient, and widespread behavioural change interventions so that "all of us" may behave in a more sustainable way. A dominant approach to behavioural change in the social and behavioural sciences including from social psychology incorporates the area of social norms. Social norms are understood as widely accepted and socialised patterns of behaviours within a population often defined in relation to a nation or ethnic/cultural group. However, theory and research on this area have highlighted that social norms require further conceptualisation and investigation. The current thesis seeks to advance theory and research regarding social norms and behavioural change. It makes a novel contribution by systematically revisiting the concept of social norms through the lens of group psychology which has only been engaged with to date in a simplistic way. The aim is to comprehensively explore norms as 'social' norms based on a Social Identity Approach (SIA) where there is a shift to reconceptualise norms as being ingroup norms with group identity as the driver of norms and behaviour.

Through a theoretical review of the social norm concept in traditional social sciences and in more contemporary work (see Chapter 2 and 3), it becomes clear that most theory and research on social norms concerns the psychology of individuals-as-individuals with limited engagement with individuals-as-group members whose distinct group psychology drives their cognition, motivations, and behaviour. A fundamental point of the thesis is that when group becomes part of people's self-definitions, it is not social norms per se that influence people's behaviour, rather it is the group that endorses these norms. A critical question emerged from this SIA-based analysis of social norms - when is group-self salient and operative? The current thesis argues for an intergroup approach to capture group identity salience and ingroup norms.

Empirical studies were conducted to examine the proposed intergroup approach to norms. Each study has a slightly different set of hypotheses but they share the goal of demonstrating group identity processes in traditional norm-based behavioural interventions - social norm communications. Across seven studies (three in Chapter 4 and four in Chapter 5), it was demonstrated that salient group identities in intergroup comparisons lead to different outcomes of norm communication which are unexplained by traditional theories of social norms, but broadly consistent with SIA predictions of ingroup norms. This supports the reconceptualisation of norms as ingroup norms and emphasises an intergroup approach to behavioural change.

In conclusion, the current thesis argues that when group identity is salient in an intergroup context, ingroup norms determine behaviours. The social norms that change people's behaviours sustainably through genuine influence, are those that resonate as ingroup norms. When social norms become 'our' norms they facilitate and accelerate norm-related behaviour which can include instances of behaviour change. In the concluding chapter (Chapter 6), we summarise our current findings and discuss further implications of an intergroup analysis of social norms and how engaging with the intergroup approach could lead to better behavioural change interventions. Show more