The Influence of Descriptive Social Norm Information on Sustainable Transportation Behavior: A Field Experiment
Abstract
A month-long field experiment evaluated the impact of descriptive social norm information on self-reported reduction of private vehicle use. Following a baseline week, participants were asked to reduce their vehicle use by 25% and were randomly assigned to a control condition or to a low or high social norm condition in which they received information that either under- or over-reported others’ successful efforts to switch to sustainable transportation. Results indicated a significant linear trend, such that messages highlighting more prevalent descriptive social norms increased sustainable transportation behavior (relative to private vehicle use) for commuting, but not non-commuting, purposes. Participants in the high social norm condition decreased their commuting-related private vehicle use by approximately five times, compared with baseline. Car-use message campaigns can reduce private vehicle use by highlighting descriptive norms about others’ sustainable transportation efforts, but these messages appear to be most effective for commuting behavior.
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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 Kormos et al. [2015]
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 Kormos et al. [2015]
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- Authors
- Kormos, C., Gifford, R., & Brown, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Victoria (CA)
- ORCID
- Gifford, Robert
- Venue
- Environment and Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-02-04
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 479-501
- ISSN
- 0013-9165 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-390X
- OpenAlex
- W2012041761
- Cited by
- 193
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 17.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Environment and Behavior (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental Education and Sustainability
- Social Sciences › Transportation › Transportation Planning and Optimization
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Transportation and Mobility Innovations
- Keywords
- descriptive norms, sustainable transport, private car use, commuting behavior, normative information, behavior change, self-reported behavior
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