The DOI matches its Crossref record; 37 of the 38 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The salience of social referents: A field experiment on collective norms and harassment behavior in a school social network.
Abstract
Persistent, widespread harassment in schools can be understood as a product of collective school norms that deem harassment, and behavior allowing harassment to escalate, as typical and even desirable. Thus, one approach to reducing harassment is to change students' perceptions of these collective norms. Theory suggests that the public behavior of highly connected and chronically salient actors in a group, called social referents, may provide influential cues for individuals' perception of collective norms. Using repeated, complete social network surveys of a public high school, we demonstrate that changing the public behavior of a randomly assigned subset of student social referents changes their peers' perceptions of school collective norms and their harassment behavior. Social referents exert their influence over peers' perceptions of collective norms through the mechanism of everyday social interaction, particularly interaction that is frequent and personally motivated, in contrast to interaction shaped by institutional channels like shared classes. These findings clarify the development of collective social norms: They depend on certain patterns of and motivations for social interactions within groups across time, and are not static but constantly reshaped and reproduced through these interactions. Understanding this process creates opportunities for changing collective norms and behavior.
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“For example, school-wide interventions in which groups of students took a public stance against conflict (e.g., by giving public rewards, such as wristbands, to peers who engaged in friendly or conflict-mitigating behaviors) were found to reduce conflict behavior at the school level (Paluck & Shepherd, 2012; Paluck, Shepherd, & Aronow, 2016).”
From The "Why" and "How" of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit (2020) · cites this paper as Paluck & Shepherd, 2012
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Flynn, D. J., Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2017) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.12394 · Cited by 1,183
Bullying in Schools: The Power of Bullies and the Plight of Victims
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Norm Perception as a Vehicle for Social Change
Tankard, M. E., & Paluck, E. L. (2016) · Social Issues and Policy Review · doi:10.1111/sipr.12022 · Cited by 883
Self-citationWise interventions: Psychological remedies for social and personal problems.
Walton, G. M., & Wilson, T. D. (2018) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/rev0000115 · Cited by 617
Changing climates of conflict: A social network experiment in 56 schools
Paluck, E. L., Shepherd, H., & Aronow, P. M. (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1514483113 · Cited by 610
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Metadata
- Authors
- Paluck, E. L., & Shepherd, H.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2012-12
- Volume
- 103
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 899-915
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W2101751809
- Cited by
- 417
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 49 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 60 · 2019: 34 · 2018: 25 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 17.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Princeton University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Power and Status Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Workplace Violence and Bullying
- Keywords
- school harassment, collective norms, social referents, norm perception, peer influence, school social networks, high school students, everyday social interaction, norm change, public behavior
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Behavior Therapy, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Psychological Tests, Surveys and Questionnaires, Schools, Social Behavior, Social Perception, Social Support, Students, Treatment Outcome, Bullying
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