Symposium: The Use of Social Norms in Public Administration

Social norms have become the tool of choice for today’s behavioral policy-makers. The inclusion of a social norm in a message or reminder can be a way to encourage citizens to carry out a wide range of socially desirable acts. These messages have primarily been used to induce desired behaviors among the non-compliant minority by pointing to the compliance of the majority (i.e., descriptive social norms). Descriptive norms have been used to encourage the payment of taxes and fees, attendance at education, recycling and so on. There are also injunctive social norms, which convey a more prescriptive message, which has been less frequently used, but features in interventions on environmental outcomes.

 

Symposium guest editors

Peter John
King's College London

Michael Sanders
King's College London & What Works Centre for Children's Social Care

 

A panacea for improving citizen behaviors? Introduction to the symposium on the use of social norms in public administration
Peter John, Michael Sanders and Jennifer Wang
Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (2019) 2(2): 1-8.

Increasing immunization compliance among schools and day care centers: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial
Jessica Leight and Elana Safran
Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (2019) 2(2): 1-15.

Testing local descriptive norms and salience of enforcement action: A field experiment to increase tax collection
Christopher Larkin, Michael Sanders, Isabelle Andresen and Felicity Algate
Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (2019) 2(1): 1-11.

Descriptive norms and gender diversity: Reactance from men
Malineh Paryavi, Iris Bohnet and Alexandra van Geen
Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (2019) 2(1): 1-16.

Parents' social norms and childern's exposure to three behavioral risk factors for chronic disease
Oliver Drouin, Jonathan P. Winickoff and Anne N. Thorndike
Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (2019) 2(1): 1-10.

Unpacking the incluence of social norms and past experience on commute mode choice
Matt Biggar
Journal of Behavioral Public Administration (2019) 2(1): 1-8.