Noah Goldstein: UCLA Anderson School of Management

Social norms can be powerful drivers of human behavior, which means that communicators who can properly harness norms hold in their hands a powerful tool for persuasion. If utilized properly, communicators can effectively convey such norms in ways that motivate individuals to engage in positive, constructive behaviors that benefit not only those individuals themselves but society as a whole. However, even thoughtful and well meaning communicators can convey norms ineffectively—or worse, elicit a negative, destructive backfire effect that may exacerbate an already unappealing situation. Yet, even in such instances, when a certain social norm leads individuals to perform destructive behaviors, other types of social norms can be employed to mitigate the negative influence of that norm. I will discuss how, when, and why different kinds of social norms play constructive, destructive, and even reconstructive roles in motivating human behavior.