The work of Vladimir Melnyk of UC3M, and co-authors François A. Carrillat and Valentyna Melnyk, of HEC Montréal and UNSW Business School, has recently been accepted for publication by the Journal of Marketing. The article “The Influence of Social Norms on Consumer Behavior: A Meta-Analysis” investigates how social norms affect consumer behavior across time and cultures. Among the main conclusions, the authors highlight that the effect of social norms on approved behavior appears stable over time and across cultures, while its effect on disapproved behavior has grown over time and is stronger in survival and traditional cultures. In addition, communications that identify specific organizations or close members of the group increase compliance with social norms, as does the presence of monetary costs.
The conclusions of the work are relevant to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. When promoting compliance with recommendations, social norms are more effective in preventing the adoption of behaviors when these are framed as disapproved or stigmatized by society. The pandemic has given rise to several new behaviors that health experts want to discourage because they are harmful to society, such as reusing the same mask. The good news is that social norms, which consist of communicating what others do (e.g., “2/3 of people avoid reusing the same mask”) or what one should do (e.g., “not reusing the same mask is essential”) are very useful in preventing people from adopting these behaviors.
The Journal of Marketing is an A+ journal in Marketing; Vladimir’s article is the first work accepted by the journal produced by a researcher affiliated with a Spanish public university.
Link to the article:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00222429211029199
