Social norms govern what behaviors come to mind—And what do not.

Abstract

It is well known that norms influence behavior. Beyond simply shaping what people do, we argue that norms constrain what behaviors even come to mind as options, effectively excluding counternormative behaviors from consideration. We test this hypothesis across five primary and multiple supplementary studies using diverse methods (Ntotal = 5,488). In Study 1, people reported that behaviors that were counternormative in a situation, even behaviors that could satisfy a motivational drive, were far less likely to come to mind and less desirable than behaviors that were norm-consistent. Going beyond self-report measures, Studies 2a–2c found that people even misrepresented norm-violating behaviors as “impossible,” suggesting they are not considered. Using a change-blindness paradigm, Study 3 found that people were less likely to track changes in goal-relevant objects that would be counternormative (vs. normative) to engage with. Studies 4 and 5 explored implications for problems of temptation and self-control. Study 4 found that members of a clinical population striving to eat healthier reported that the very same unhealthy but tasty food items would be less tempting and would trigger less self-control conflict if they encountered the food in a context where its consumption would be counternormative (vs. normative). Study 5, a field study, shows that introducing a norm prohibiting laptop use in class reduced students’ temptation to multitask (as well as actual multitasking) over the term, whereas encouraging individual self-control did not. Discussion addresses how norms can be harnessed to lighten the burdens of temptations and help people achieve their goals.

Social norm learning alters feature-based visual attention: Evidence from steady-state visual evoked potentials.

“…Our results are consistent with the general finding that social norms render norm-congruent (vs. incongruent) information more (vs. less) accessible (Kalkstein et al, 2023). This seems to contradict findings that another form of social knowledge—stereotypes and social categories—frequently lead people to intensively process knowledge-incongruent information (e.g., enhanced processing of gender-stereotype incongruent information, Hügelschäfer et al, 2016).…”

Microinclusions: Treating women as respected work partners increases a sense of fit in technology companies.

“…One cannot build a business, forge a scientific discovery, or advance culture alone. Therefore, teams of people come together to accomplish these goals, building companies and other organizations to do more than one person can alone, along with legal structures that define and support these collectives and social norms that support coordinated goal pursuit (Kalkstein et al, 2023). It is unsurprising, then, that, at a psychological level, people have powerful mechanisms that facilitate personal motivation for goals pursued jointly with others (Carr & Walton, 2014; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; Tomasello et al, 2005).…”

Who follows through? Different factors predict initial commitment vs. Following through in a national survey of organ donor registration

“…Negative affect is known to impede goal pursuit by reducing both the accessibility and desirability of goals [ 56 ] and it is possible that anticipating negative affect about organ donor registration could thus have tarnished registration goals during the interim between initial commitment and follow-through. Recent research on social proof may explain why descriptive norms directly influenced registration behavior–normative behaviors are more likely to come to mind and are perceived as more feasible than non-normative behaviors [ 57 ]. This analysis suggests that when organ donor registration behavior is more common in people’s social circles, mental representations of the behavior are more accessible, and so individuals are more likely to follow through with registration.…”