We have a common tendency to adopt the opinions and follow the behaviours of the majority.
We might do this for two different reasons:
- We use what others do as a shortcutfor decision-making. We don’t always have time to fully research choices and cannot be experts in everything. So sometimes it can be useful to copy others
- We like to conformto what our peers are doing to fit in, especially as teenagers. Humans are amazingly social beings and we usually feel happier conforming rather than facing disapproval from the group
But why do people do this?
Social scientists have identified two types of social norms:
- Descriptive social norms– doing what everyone else is doing, e.g. buying the latest iPhone that everyone seems to be getting
- Injunctive social norms– what others believe or what others approve of and therefore what we know we should be doing e.g. tipping a waiter is a cultural norm
In this article and the next, we look at two applications of descriptive and injunctive social norms to show how different types of norms can be applied in different contexts. The first application is about how to get people to pay their overdue taxes (described below). The second is about how to dissuade doctors from over-prescribing antibiotics.
Social Norms Illustrated
Governments lose substantial amounts of revenue from delayed or unpaid tax payments. Whilst a handful of people may be dishonestly dodging the tax authorities or simply short of cash, it’s more often the case that we simply forget or procrastinate and just don’t get around to paying on time. Those who don’t pay on time may think there are many others just like them. However, this is not the case. In most countries they are the odd ones out.
The UK is no exception to this problem with an estimated £4.55 billion of taxes owed in 2010 due to non-payment. So, in 2012 a team of behavioural scientists partnered with the HMRC and the UK Behavioural Insights Team to run a large scale field experiment across over 100,000 UK taxpayers.[1]They tested a series of interventions to see if different social norm messages including reminder letters about taxes owed might influence the timely payment of taxes.
In their experiment, they tested 11 variations of both descriptive and injunctive social norm messages about paying taxes.
The most effective messages were those which drew on descriptive social norms – that is the ones that highlight what most people are doing:
- “The great majority of people in your local area pay their tax on time. Most people with a debt like yours have paid it by now.”
This is a double-hitting message. It reminds people that most people in their area have already paid their tax and makes salient that they were in the minority. This message increased response rates by 5%.
- “Nine out of ten people in the UK pay their tax on time. You are currently in the very small minority of people who have not paid us yet.”
This highlights that most UK taxpayers pay their taxes and makes clear that the negligent taxpayer was in the minority. This message increased response rates by 4.2%.
- “You are currently in the very small minority of people who have not paid us yet.”
Similarly, stating only the last part of the message above increased response rates by 4.7%.
Although the injunctive norms messages stating majority opinions about tax paying generally had smaller effects than the descriptive norm statements, all had a positive uplift. A message which highlighted the majority opinion as a percentage had the largest impact of all injunctive norms messages though, increasing response rates by 3.4%1.
“88% of people agree that everyone in the UK should pay their tax on time.”
If the most effective message – the first in the list above – had been applied to all the letters in the intervention, the researchers estimate that this would have generated an additional £15.4 million in revenue. Given that this intervention was low cost – simply a subtle change in the language used in a letter – this is an astounding result and illustrates the potential effectiveness of simple ways of using social norms statements to steer behaviour.
So what does this all mean…
Making people more aware of what others are doing and what is approved of can be very influential. Sometimes, finding out and correcting people’s perceptions can be informative too. In research, try investigating what people think others are doing or what they think is accepted behaviour. You might be surprised to learn what people think!
NEXT IN THE SERIES:Every three weeks The Behavioural Architects will put another cognitive bias or behavioural economics concept under the spotlight. Our next article again features social norms, from a different angle.
@thebearchitects
PREVIOUS ARTICLES IN THE SERIES:
System 1 & 2
Heuristics
Optimism bias
Availability bias
Inattentional blindness
Change blindness
Anchoring
Confirmation Bias
Framing
Loss Aversion
Reciprocity
Hot Cold empathy gap
[1]Hallsworth, M., List, J., Metcalfe, R.D., Vlaev, I. “The Behaviouralist as Tax Collector: Using Natural Field Experiments to Enhance Tax Compliance” March 2014, NBER Working Paper No. w20007
