The Role of Affect and Motivation in Norm-Based Interventions for Social Change
Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly
We distinguish “norm-based interventions” from other strategies to reduce prejudice and argue they are a powerful class of tools.Norm-based interventions reduce prejudice by changing social norms and, importantly, people’s perceptions of them, instead of changing beliefs or attitudes about social groups directly (Tankard & Paluck 2016).Building onrecent cognitive-evolutionary work on norm psychology (e.g.,Richardson & Boyd 2005; Henrich 2015; Kelly & Davis forthcoming), we suggest that the distinctive, intrinsic motivational force of norms is underappreciated, and that a better understanding of this aspect of them can help to make norm-based interventions effective.
Norm-Based Interventions
When people’s beliefs about social regularities change, their behavior often changes too.Theft in a National Park increased, for example, when visitors saw an anti-theft message indicating a high prevalence of stealing (Cialdini et al. 2006).Likewise,Duguid and Thomas-Hunt (2015) found that telling people that “the vast majority of people have stereotypical preconceptions” leads them express more stereotypes and to act in more stereotype-consistent ways, compared with people who are told that “very few people have stereotypical preconceptions” (347).Moreover, Paluck and colleagues’ (2009, 2016) large-scale field studies found that training small “seed groups” to model anti-conflict strategies reduced disciplinary reports of student conflicts in 56 middle schools by up to 60% over 1 year , and that Rwandan radio soap operas that modeled open dissent and cooperation dramatically reduced intergroup prejudice.
Norms:Affect and Motivation
Most research on norms and norm-based interventions has focused on establishing effectiveness rather than exploring underlying mechanisms (but see Sripada Stich 2007).Prominent researchers assume a “cognitivist” interpretation of norm psychology, according to which acquiring norms involves forming beliefs about others’ behavior (Bicchieri 2016).For example, Tankard and Paluck(2016) describe norm perception as a heuristic for gathering information about the social world. This cognitivist approach leaves it mysterious why new norms “stick” in some situations, but not others.For example, vivid, face-to-face exposure to norm-consistent behavior has particularly powerful effects (e.g., Keizer et al. 2008).But why should this be if the motivation force of norms is merely instrumental?
We instead defend the idea that human minds are equipped with a sui generis “norm system,” which treats norm acquisition as entailingintrinsic motivation to obey and enforce norms (op. cit.), and we apply this model specifically to norm-based interventions.
We lay out desiderata for a theory of norm-based interventions in terms of thissui generis norm system.Such a theory must distinguish genuinely internalized norms from beliefs and attitudes about norms.Relatedly, it must identify the distinctive motivational quality of internalized norms (compared to other motivational states).To meet these desiderata, we emphasize the centrality of rewards and punishments to norm-learning, and argue that norm-internalization has atripartite, action-oriented structure.Norm acquisition involves beliefs about others’ beliefs or attitudes, feelings that one ought to do what others do, and behavioral inclinations to act consistently with the norm.
This approach illuminatesthe effectiveness of influential prejudice-reduction research.For example, Paluck’sresearch utilizes “social referents,” people with particular influence over others’ perceptions of norms.Effective social referents are prestigious (students with extensive social connections and radio soap opera stars).The importance of prestige for norm-learning is hard to explain on a cognitivist interpretation, but it fits naturally with our approach (e.g., Henrich 2015).Similarly, Broockman and Kalla (2016) showed that 10-minute conversations with voters durably increased positivity towards transgender people in Miami, Florida.Canvassers asked voters to recall instances of being judged negatively for being different and to relate that feeling to the experiences of transgender people.[1]We propose that this perspective-taking interaction included a central norm-based component, shifting perceptions of others’ beliefs about what’s normal and acceptable.These attitudinal effects of the study best make sense if norm-based interventions are both information-providing and motivating.
We conclude withdirections for future research.The effectiveness of norm-based interventions may be increased, we hypothesize, by utilizing the learning biases inherent to the “norm system,” such as biases in favor of learning from prestigious individuals and in contexts in which people are acutely motivated to conform to group behavior.
[1]Don’t confuse Broockman and Kalla’s study for the discredited and retracted LaCour and Green (2014).Broockman and Kalla caught LaCour and Green’s fraud and then ran an actual study, which was similar in a number of ways to what LaCour and Green claimed to have done.