The impact of descriptive norms on motivation to participate in cancer screening – Evidence from online experiments
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: The current study tested in two online experiments whether manipulating normative beliefs about cancer screening uptake increases intention to attend colorectal screening among previously disinclined individuals. METHODS: 2461 men and women from an Internet panel (Experiment 1 N = 1032; Experiment 2, N = 1423) who initially stated that they did not intend to take up screening were asked to guess how many men and women they believe to get screened for colorectal cancer. Across participants, we varied the presence/absence of feedback on the participant's estimate, as well as the stated proportion of men and women doing the screening test. RESULTS: Across the two experiments, we found that receiving one of the experimental messages stating that uptake is higher than estimated significantly increased the proportion of disinclined men and women becoming intenders. While, we found a positive relationship between the communicated uptake and screening intentions, we did not find evidence that providing feedback on the estimate has an added benefit. CONCLUSION: Screening intention can be effectively manipulated through a high uptake message. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Communication of high screening uptake is an easy and effective way to motivate disinclined individuals to engage in colorectal cancer screening.
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This meta-analysis and individual experimental studies suggest that descriptive norms often exert a significant causal influence on behaviour.
“This meta-analysis and several individual experimental studies that manipulated the scope of descriptive norms to track causal normbehaviour links (Kormos et al. [2015]; von Wagner et al. [2019]) suggest that descriptive norms do often exert a significant causal influence on behaviour.”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as von Wagner et al. [2019]
A wider descriptive norm produces a stronger impact on people's intention to act.
“the broader the scope of the descriptive norm (for example, 50% versus 80%), the stronger the effect on intention to act(Kormos et al. [2015];von Wagner et al. [2019]).”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as von Wagner et al. [2019]
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- Authors
- von Wagner, C., Hirst, Y., Waller, J., Ghanouni, A., McGregor, L. M., Kerrison, R. S., Verstraete, W., Vlaev, I., Sieverding, M., & Stoffel, S. T.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- University of Warwick (GB)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Patient Education and Counseling
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-09
- Volume
- 102
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1621-1628
- ISSN
- 0738-3991 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6686210
- OpenAlex
- W2935359073
- Cited by
- 32
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 1.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Patient Education and Counseling (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
- CLOK (University of Central Lancashire) (acceptedVersion)
- Open Research (University of Surrey) (submittedVersion)
- Stirling Online Research Repository (University of Stirling) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Cancer Research UK (UK C1418/A14134)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Colorectal Cancer Screening and Detection
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Media Influence and Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Global Cancer Incidence and Screening
- Keywords
- descriptive norms, cancer screening, colorectal cancer screening, screening uptake, screening intention, health behavior change, normative beliefs, health communication
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Female, Humans, Male, Mass Screening, Middle Aged, Motivation, Colorectal Neoplasms, Internet, Intention, Early Detection of Cancer, Social Norms
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