Why do we follow the behavior of others?

Social Norms

, explained.
Bias

What are Social Norms?

Social norms are collectively held beliefs about what kind of behavior is appropriate in a given situation. They range from specific customs—for example, the Western custom of shaking hands with somebody when you meet them for the first time—to more general rules that govern behavior and influence our understanding of other people.

An illustration with various stick figures engaging in different activities under the text "Social Norms."

Where this bias occurs

Social norms know no bounds. We’re susceptible to them in every setting and they can even influence us to do things that we normally wouldn’t. Let’s say you’re out walking, drinking a take-out coffee as you go. The neighborhood you’re in seems fairly vacant, and there’s a lot of litter on the ground near you. When you finish your coffee, you toss it onto the sidewalk instead of finding a garbage can, because clearly, that’s what everybody else does.

Sources

  1. Aronson, E., & Aronson, J. (2018). The social animal. Worth Publishers, Macmillan Learning.
  2. Aronson, E., & O’Leary, M. (1982). The relative effectiveness of models and prompts on energy conservation: A field experiment in a shower room. Journal of Environmental Systems, 12(3), 219-224.
  3. Burger, J. M., Sanchez, J., Imberi, J. E., & Grande, L. R. (2009). The norm of reciprocity as an internalized social norm: Returning favors even when no one finds out. Social Influence, 4(1), 11-17.
  4. Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological bulletin, 117(3), 497.
  5. Easton, M. (2018, February 11). How should we tackle the loneliness epidemic? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42887932
  6. Cialdini, R. B., & Trost, M. R. (1998). Social influence: Social norms, conformity and compliance.
  7. Cialdini, R. B., Vincent, J. E., Lewis, S. K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D., & Darby, B. L. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of personality and Social Psychology, 31(2), 206.
  8. Kallgren, C. A., Reno, R. R., & Cialdini, R. B. (2000). A focus theory of normative conduct: When norms do and do not affect behavior. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 26(8), 1002-1012.
  9. Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (1993). Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: some consequences of misperceiving the social norm. Journal of personality and social psychology, 64(2), 243.
  10. McLeod, S. (2016). What is conformity? Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/conformity.html#sherif
  11. Burger, J. M., Horita, M., Kinoshita, L., Roberts, K., & Vera, C. (1997). Effects on time on the norm of reciprocity. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 19(1), 91-100.
  12. Zenko, M. (2018, October 19). Commentary: Leaders can make really dumb decisions. This exercise can fix that. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2018/10/19/red-teams-decision-making-leadership/
  13. Bregman, P. (2015, October 21). The high cost of conformity, and how to avoid it. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/10/the-high-cost-of-conformity-and-how-to-avoid-it
  14. Ansfield, B. (2019, December 27). How a 50-year-old study was misconstrued to create destructive broken-windows policing. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/27/how-year-old-study-was-misconstrued-create-destructive-broken-windows-policing/
  15. Field, A. (2022, April 21). Socially responsible consumer spending at a record high. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2021/12/19/socially-responsible-consumer-spending-at-a-record-high/ 
  16. Neuman, Y., & Cohen, Y. (2023). AI for identifying Social Norm Violation. Scientific Reports, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35350-x

About the Authors

A man in a blue, striped shirt smiles while standing indoors, surrounded by green plants and modern office decor.

Dan Pilat

Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.

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Dr. Sekoul Krastev

Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.

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