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Bidirectional associations between descriptive and injunctive norms

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posted on 2023-06-08, 21:19 authored by Kimmo Eriksson, Pontus Strimling, Julie C Coultas
Modern research on social norms makes an important distinction between descriptive norms (how people commonly behave) and injunctive norms (what one is morally obligated to do). Here we propose that this distinction is far from clear in the cognition of social norms. In a first study, using the implicit association test, the concepts of ‘‘common’’ and ‘‘moral’’ were found to be strongly associated. Some implications of this automatic common–moral association were investigated in a subsequent series of experiments: Our participants tended to make explicit inferences from descriptive norms to injunctive norms and vice versa; they tended to mix up descriptive and injunctive concepts in recall tasks; and frequency information influenced participants’ own moral judgments. We conclude by discussing how the common–moral association could play a role in the dynamics of social norms.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

ISSN

0749-5978

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

129

Page range

59-69

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-06-30

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