The DOI matches its Crossref record; 31 of the 33 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 14 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.
The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms
Open accessAbstract
Despite a long tradition of effectiveness in laboratory tests, normative messages have had mixed success in changing behavior in field contexts, with some studies showing boomerang effects. To test a theoretical account of this inconsistency, we conducted a field experiment in which normative messages were used to promote household energy conservation. As predicted, a descriptive normative message detailing average neighborhood usage produced either desirable energy savings or the undesirable boomerang effect, depending on whether households were already consuming at a low or high rate. Also as predicted, adding an injunctive message (conveying social approval or disapproval) eliminated the boomerang effect. The results offer an explanation for the mixed success of persuasive appeals based on social norms and suggest how such appeals should be properly crafted.
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14 Own interpretation · 10 Own result · 6 No full text of the sources · 4 Own method · 2 Not checked yet · 1 No basis given
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Finally, for households consuming above the average, the combined descriptive-plusinjunctive message served to decrease energy consumption (M = 18.91,SE = 0.73 vs. baseline M = 20.63,SE = 0.64; n = 63), t(62) = 2.49, p rep = .96,d = 0.63.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Short-Term Change in Electricity Usage
plaindirectn = 63 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The valence of the emoticon (happy face or sad face) communicates an injunctive message of approval or disapproval for the amount of energy being consumed.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In contrast, for households that were below the mean on baseline energy consumption, the descriptivenorm-only message produced an increase in energy consumption from baseline (M = 11.27,SE = 0.46 vs. baseline M = 10.38,SE = 0.33; n = 79), t(78) = 2.28, p rep = .94,d = 5 0.52.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Short-Term Change in Electricity Usage
plaindirectn = 79 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: Residents perceive descriptive normative information about the average household's energy consumption as a descriptive norm.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“For example, in the short term, the reduction in energy usage for high-consuming households was 1.72 kWh/day in the descriptive-plus-injunctive condition, compared with 1.22 kWh/day in the descriptive-only condition.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > DISCUSSION
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, the combined injunctive-plus-descriptive message produced no change from baseline for low-consuming households (longer-term M = 10.14, SE = 0.37 vs. baseline M = 10.04,SE = 0.35; n = 70), t(69) = 0.64, n.s.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Longer-Term Changes in Energy Consumption
plainn = 70- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The valence of the emoticon (happy face or sad face) communicates an injunctive message of approval or disapproval for the amount of energy being consumed.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“For those households initially low in energy consumption, the descriptive-norm-only condition produced a significant increase in electricity usage (longer-term M = 11.13,SE =0.44 vs. baseline M = 10.15,SE = 0.34; n = 68), t(67) = 2.42, p rep = .95,d = 0.59.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Longer-Term Changes in Energy Consumption
plaindirectn = 68 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: Residents perceive descriptive normative information about the average household's energy consumption as a descriptive norm.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“For households that consumed more than the average during the baseline period, the descriptivenorm-only feedback produced a significant decrease in energy consumption relative to the baseline (M = 20.25,SE = 1.03 vs. baseline M = 21.47,SE = 0.89; n =64), t(63) = 2.17, p rep = .93,d = 0.55.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Short-Term Change in Electricity Usage
plaindirectn = 64 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: Residents perceive descriptive normative information about the average household's energy consumption as a descriptive norm.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“When the injunctive message was added to the descriptive normative feedback, households that were consuming less energy than average continued to consume at the desirable low rate (M = 10.58,SE = 0.38 vs. baseline M = 10.34,SE = 0.33; n =81), t(80) = 1.04, n.s.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Short-Term Change in Electricity Usage
plainn = 81- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: The valence of the emoticon (happy face or sad face) communicates an injunctive message of approval or disapproval for the amount of energy being consumed.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“The majority of individuals overestimate the prevalence of many undesirable behaviors, such as alcohol use among peers (e.g., Borsari & Carey, 2003;Prentice & Miller, 1993)”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Abstract
What the sources say
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Moreover, despite concerns that normative interventions have an effect for only a short time, the longer-term results indicate that the effects of the normative messages continued to be strong even 4 weeks after the initial intervention.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > DISCUSSION
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Overall, the results for both the short-term measure and the longer-term measure were consistent with predictions.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Longer-Term Changes in Energy Consumption
plainn = 56 ·- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
- It may state two separate claims as one. 11
- Probably not a substantial claim. 4
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“For those households that were high in energy consumption at baseline, the descriptive-norm-only message continued to produce the (constructive) decrease in energy consumption, although the difference was not conventionally significant (baseline M = 22.32, SE = 1.05 vs. longer-term M = 21.29,SE = 0.92; n = 52), t(51) = 1.45, n.s.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Longer-Term Changes in Energy Consumption
plaindirectn = 52- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Residents perceive descriptive normative information about the average household's energy consumption as a descriptive norm.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Our results show this overall pattern, although the differences were not statistically significant.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > DISCUSSION
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“At each measurement period, daily household energy consumption was positively skewed (M = 15.03,SD 5 7.10, skew = 1.39, range = 1.63-35.88),resulting in more households below the mean than above.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Results
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- The authors state this as an assumption: The mean is a more meaningful number than other measures of central tendency when reported to residents.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Of the 287 households in the study, 41 were inconsistently above or below the average across the 2 weeks of normative feedback and were therefore excluded from the analyses of longer-term change.There were no significant differences in inconsistency rate across the four experimental conditions.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Longer-Term Changes in Energy Consumption
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Our results demonstrate the potential for such messages to boomerang, but the results also show that an injunctive element of approval is reconstructive in its ability to ameliorate these unwanted effects.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > DISCUSSION
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: The valence of the emoticon (happy face or sad face) communicates an injunctive message of approval or disapproval for the amount of energy being consumed.
In the paper
“Second, prior research has suggested that presenting aligned descriptive and injunctive norms can result in larger behavioral changes than presenting either type of norm in isolation (Cialdini, 2003).”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > DISCUSSION
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Cialdini, 2003 source
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Households were matched on this baseline measure and randomly assigned to either the descriptive-norm-only condition or the descriptive-plusinjunctive-information condition.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Participants and Design
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Three households called to withdraw from the study following the initial normative-feedback distribution, resulting in a final sample of 287.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Results
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“On 157 occasions, two research assistants were assigned to read the same meter.These independent readings correlated at r 5 .999.”
- Also stated in: § Results · plain
“The correlation between this measure and our readings was .96and .99 on 2 separate months.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Results
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Also stated in: § Results · plain
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Thus, the overall impact of a normative education campaign will depend on the distribution of the behavior in the population; a campaign could produce an increase, decrease, or no change in the behavior (the latter being most likely).”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > DISCUSSION
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Our results suggest that for those individuals who tend to engage in destructive behaviors, a descriptive normative message can be a guide to engaging in more constructive behavior; in contrast, for those individuals who already engage in the constructive behavior, a descriptive normative message can be a spur to engaging in more destructive behavior.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > DISCUSSION
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The results offer an explanation for the mixed success of persuasive appeals based on social norms and suggest how such appeals should be properly crafted.”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Abstract
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“the research has clearly established that social norms not only spur but also guide action in direct and meaningful ways (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003;Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1991;Darley & Latane´, 1970;Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2006;Kerr, 1995;Terry & Hogg, 2001).”
§ The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms > Abstract
What the sources say
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
The paper relies on this without support.
The valence of the emoticon (happy face or sad face) communicates an injunctive message of approval or disapproval for the amount of energy being consumed.
“The valence of the emoticon was used to communicate an injunctive message of approval or disapproval for the amount of energy being con-sumed.”
The authors state this as an assumption.
The mean is a more meaningful number than other measures of central tendency when reported to residents.
“we used the mean as the dividing point for consumption because we believed it would provide a more meaningful number than other measures of central tendency when reported to residents.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Energy conservation has a direct personal benefit (saving money), is private, is recurring rather than a one-time action, and has widespread social approval.
“The target behavior in this study (energy conservation) has a direct personal benefit (saving money), is private, is reoccurring (rather than a onetime action), and has widespread social approval.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Residents perceive descriptive normative information about the average household's energy consumption as a descriptive norm.
“descriptive normative information about the actual energy consumption of the average household in their neighborhood during that same period (in kilowatt-hours per day)”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Research has shown that placing a greater emphasis on the injunctive norm can help to overcome the problem of a negative descriptive norm (Schultz et al., 2007; Smith and Louis, 2008).”
From A Social Identity Analysis of Climate Change and Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors: Insights and Opportunities (2016) · cites this paper as Schultz et al., 2007
In the citing paper
“Notice that many of the experiments just mentioned were field studies, that is, they were conducted in naturalistic contexts ensuring high ecological validity (see Schultz et al. [2007]; Goldstein et al. [2008]; Gerber and Rogers [2009]; Hallsworth et al. [2017]; Sparkman and Walton [2017]).”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as Schultz et al. [2007]
In the citing paper
“in one study, (Californian) households informed that they used more electricity than all the other households in their neighbourhood subsequently reduced their energy consumption, whereas households informed that they used less than all others increased it (Schultz et al. [2007]).”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as Schultz et al. [2007]
In the citing paper
“many of the experiments on descriptive norms discussed earlier can in fact be viewed as involving actual instances of PST on their own: they involve public (descriptive-norms conveying) claims by scientific or otherwise authoritative sources about negative features”
From Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms (2023) · cites this paper as Schultz et al. [2007]
Statistics recomputed
Every reported test result, recomputed from its test statistic and degrees of freedom. A result shows as not adding up only once an independent check has confirmed it.
- Consistentt(80) = 1.04reported n.s. · recomputed p = .301
“t(80) = 1.04, n.s.”
- Consistentt(51) = 1.45reported n.s. · recomputed p = .153
“t(51) = 1.45, n.s.”
- Consistentt(69) = 0.64reported n.s. · recomputed p = .524
“t(69) = 0.64, n.s.”
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Self-check results appear here once an independent check has confirmed them.
Citations
Cites
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Self-citation
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Metadata
- Authors
- Schultz, P. W., Nolan, J. M., Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J., & Griskevicius, V.
- Affiliations
- California State University, San Marcos (US)
- 2 University of Arkansas
- Arizona State University (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2007-05
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 429-434
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2147478345
- Cited by
- 3,643
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 156 · 2025: 222 · 2024: 235 · 2023: 231 · 2022: 243 · 2021: 329 · 2020: 244 · 2019: 284 · 2018: 241 · 2017: 225 · 2016: 232 · 2015: 226 · 2014: 185 · 2013: 172 · 2012: 138
- FWCI
- 233.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- John Spoor Broome Library Institutional Repository (California State University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Pro-Environmental Behavior and Attitudes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychology of Social Influence
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- social norms, normative messages, boomerang effect, descriptive norms, injunctive norms, residential energy conservation, persuasive appeals, field experiments, social approval, energy conservation
- MeSH terms
- Conservation of Energy Resources, Family Characteristics, Humans, Persuasive Communication, Residence Characteristics, Social Behavior, Social Values
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