Source record
Dynamic norms promote sustainable behavior, even if it is counternormative
Gregg Sparkman, Gregory M. Walton (2017). Psychological Science. Stanford University.
Key findings
- Telling people that a behaviour is becoming more common roughly doubled the proportion of café patrons ordering a meatless lunch, compared with a static norm.
- Later work found a 'reduce' appeal cut meat servings by 7 to 9% over five months, while an 'eliminate' appeal produced a smaller, non-significant effect.
Record
- Source type
- Peer Reviewed Study
- Study type
- Randomised Controlled Trial
- Topics
- Climate & emissions
- Geography
- United States
- Population
- Café patrons and online participants
- Funding & conflicts
- Not recorded.
- Source quality
- Moderate evidenceWell-designed original trials, but the effect has failed to replicate in at least two later settings, which is recorded here rather than omitted.
Limitations
- A direct United Kingdom replication failed to reproduce the effect on interest in reducing meat consumption.
- An in-store trial of a 'more and more customers are choosing veggie' message found no effect on the meat versus plant sales split.
- Café field results come from a single site and a short window.