Sustainability Language

Strategy, Targets & Performance Management

Descriptive norm

A social norm describing what people actually do — "most guests reuse their towels" — as distinct from injunctive norms about what people ought to do.

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Definition

A descriptive norm is the perception of what most people actually do in a given situation, contrasted by Cialdini and colleagues (1990) with injunctive norms — perceptions of what others approve or disapprove. Descriptive norms guide behaviour as a decisional shortcut ("what is normal here?"), and are widely used in behaviour-change interventions, though communicating them can backfire for people already performing better than the norm (the boomerang effect).

References

Overview

What it means

Behaviour is contagious: showing that a sustainable behaviour is common tends to spread it — but telling low-users about the average can pull them upward.

How it is used

Programmes use descriptive norms in home energy reports comparing households to neighbours, hotel towel-reuse messages, recycling campaigns and tax-compliance letters.

Why it matters

Norm-based messaging is among the cheapest, best-evidenced behaviour-change tools in energy, water and waste programmes.

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