https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-38593-w
"Human sociality is governed by two types of social norms: injunctive norms,
which prescribe what people
ought to do, and descriptive norms, which reflect
what people
actually do. The process by which these norms emerge and their
causal influences on cooperative behavior over time are not well understood.
Here, we study these questions through social norms influencing mask wearing
during the COVID-19 pandemic. Leveraging 2 years of data from the United States
(18 time points; n = 915), we tracked mask wearing and perceived injunctive and
descriptive mask wearing norms as the pandemic unfolded. Longitudinal trends
suggested that norms and behavior were tightly coupled, changing quickly in
response to public health recommendations. In addition, longitudinal modeling
revealed that descriptive norms caused future increases in mask wearing across
multiple waves of data collection. These cross-lagged causal effects of
descriptive norms were large, even after controlling for non-social beliefs and
demographic variables. Injunctive norms, by contrast, had less frequent and
generally weaker causal effects on future mask wearing. During uncertain times,
cooperative behavior is more strongly driven by what others are actually doing,
rather than what others think ought to be done."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: July 27, 2023
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-86727898
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
