Changing Culture by Changing Norms
By Annie Neimand, Ph.D.
In an effort to move past communication strategies that simply “raise awareness” of an issue, the UN Refugee Agency and the University of Florida partnered to better understand how science can connect individuals with calls to actions that will result in lasting difference on the issues that matter most.This research project shares theory and science that helps us understand how people think and act, and is designed to help you incorporate those insights into your work.
Innovation requires culture change, which means we have to change how people think. While it’s tempting to assume that we need to change how they think about innovation, the reality is more subtle. Social norms theory tells us that we need to focus on shifting their perception of how others think about innovation. Whether it is changing the narrative people have in their minds about a particular issue, or inspiring a community to start doing something they have not done before, academic research helps us narrow in on promising approaches for the type of change we hope to make.
This is particularly true for making space for innovation within a community. When new ways of working challenge behaviors that feel safe and comfortable, people may hesitate to adopt the change. Building a culture of innovation means we have to change how people think (this is the way we have always done it, or this is what others in my community are doing) and the actions they take (this is what we have to do to achieve our goals), with a particular emphasis on their understanding of what people they see as being like them do.
Within many large institutions, such as the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), we may adhere to norms without realizing we’re doing it. However, if we can understand how norms are transmitted, we can build an environment for the creation of new norms.
Norms are formal and informal rules that influence our behavior in different contexts. For example, a formal norm around hiring practices at an organization might involve following an institutionalized protocol, and an informal norm might involve the hiring committee preferring candidates with similar backgrounds to them.
We learn norms from three different sources.
- First, we learn norms by interacting and observing what others in our social groups — groups of people with whom we share some sort of membership, i.e. soccer fans, UNHCR staff, academics — are doing.
- Second, we learn norms through the culture we consume. The stories shared in media and on social media impact what we see as culturally acceptable or as taboo. These stories may also exist through channels such as an organization’s intranet or through gossip in your institution’s cafeteria.
- Third, we learn norms through our social institutions and authority figures, such as through governments or officials in an organization. For example, after marriage equality was passed in the United States by the Supreme Court, researchers found an increase in the belief that their country and its citizens were in support of gay marriage. The researchers write that “these findings provide the first experimental evidence that an institutional decision can change perceptions of social norms, which have been shown to guide behavior, even when individual opinions are unchanged” (Tankard and Paluck, 2017).
There are different types of norms. Moral norms describe what people feel is the morally right thing to do, transformative norms describe changes a community of people are starting to make, and descriptive norms describe how the majority of people in a group act.
In a recent experiment, researchers found that people were more likely to click the donate button on a story about homelessness when the action was framed as a moral and social norm (e.g., “To do some good [moral norm], join the 33,354 people [social norm] who have used the Active Button and click an amount below to make a donation today!” as compared to those who received the call to action “Click an amount below to make a donation today”) (Karlin, Chapman, & Saucier, 2019).
At UNHCR, for example, the official establishment of an Ethics Office 10 years ago represents a shift in the moral norms of the organization. The ‘oil-for-food’ scandal in Iraq in the early 2000s put a spotlight on issues of fraud and corruption across the United Nations, and renewed a UN-wide effort to reinforce ethical and accountable decision-making in the system. A dedicated office to advise on moral decision-making according to UNHCR values, and corporate tools such as the code of conduct, demonstrate efforts in UNHCR to shape moral norms in the organization.
If we look at the role of transformative norms, we also can recognize how complex institutions such as UNHCR have identified opportunities to translate new norms into their culture. The introduction of an innovation team into UNHCR in 2012 is a reflection of change in the transformative norms of both government and private sector bodies. The last few decades have seen a proliferation of innovation-talk and innovation teams globally, with their impact associated with positive change in efficiency and productivity, and the promotion of entrepreneurial qualities. Innovation, as a mode of change, has come to dominate the discourse of transformation. And while many of the behaviors associated with innovation already existed across the institution, establishing a dedicated team to facilitate, incentivize, and reward innovative thinking exemplifies how norms can be leveraged to reimagine organizational culture and create a new institutionalized way of working.
While sociologists differentiate between types of norms, generally norms tell us what most people like us do and should do. And, because as humans we are inclined to take action to fit within our social groups, maintain a positive sense of self, and avoid social and institutionalized punishments, we use these norms to guide our behavior (Tankard and Paluck, 2016; Cialdini & Trost, 1998).
A social norms approach to change requires identifying behaviors you would like a group of people to adopt, while increasing perceptions of that behavior as something members of their group do or are starting to do.
For example, experiments in the U.S. to motivate infrequent and occasional voters to vote in an upcoming election suggest that persuasive messages that highlight high voter turnout (that millions of people vote), rather than low voter turnout (millions of people stay home), are more effective in increasing intentions to vote (Gerber & Rodgers, 2009).
Storytelling is also fundamental to culture change — stories have the profound potential to make familiar topics feel new and new topics feel familiar. Stories are effective vessels for communicating norms. Whether it’s in the moments we are waiting for colleagues to gather for an important meeting or a one-on-one chat while grabbing a coffee with someone we work most closely, formal and informal spaces offer opportunities to transmit values, reinforce our organizational culture and communicate organizational norms.
In 2019, UNHCR’s Innovation Fund invested in the Storytelling and Culture project to better understand and test whether stories could be used as a leadership tool to foster positive and inclusive working environments within UNHCR. While the experiment is still underway, initial results from focus group discussions, workshops undertaken across UNHCR operations, and a global virtual storytelling event have all emphasized how stories have the ability to change perceptions and can reinforce positive behaviors within UNHCR’s culture.
As these examples show, norms change can be inspired through messaging and storytelling, as well as through collaboration with the right people in a community who have the power to inspire new behaviors. In this research brief, we will discuss the academic research on how to build a norms change strategy for culture change.
Why Social Norms for Social Change
A norms approach is different from other approaches that try to alter people’s beliefs and values. A norms approach attempts to change what people think others like them are feeling and doing. As a result, changing perceptions of group norms can have an impact on their own behavior(s).
In a yearlong experiment, Elizabeth Paluck, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, tested the impact of the popular radio soap opera New Dawn in shifting perceptions of norms around interethnic conflict and relationships among the majority Hutu and minority Tutsis people in Rwanda. Historically, these two groups have experienced conflict and violence. The radio show featured two characters from the different groups who are in love and start a peaceful revolution together. The story was designed to shift perceptions of intergroup norms among these Rwandan communities. Paluck found that those who listened to New Dawn experienced a shift in their perceptions of norms around interethnic marriage, trust, empathy and cooperation. As a result, they changed their behavior (Paluck, 2009).
As Paluck told National Public Radio, “[Participants would say] This is clearly something that Rwandans are into. They’re into this relationship on the soap. I may not personally believe in letting my daughter marry someone from the other ethnicity, but I’m going to let her — because that’s what we as Rwandans are doing now. So I found that people’s behavior changed even when their personal beliefs stayed the same.”
People are motivated to engage in actions that they believe are desirable to their social groups to signal their membership and to fit in. To change the behavior of a community, researchers argue that we need to change what people believe others like them are doing and what they ought to be doing to maintain status and affiliation within their social groups — whether that is among a family, a group of friends or at an organization (Tankard and Paluck, 2016).
Because we can’t know what everyone like us is thinking, we make assumptions based on observations of people like us that we generalize as groups. We tend to assume that the behaviors we engage in are what others like us do. We use these mental shortcuts to help us identify what we should or should not be doing (Tankard & Paluck, 2016). When we change perceptions of group norms, we can change behavior.
One study found that university athletes were overestimating how much alcohol their peers were drinking in a week. The researchers tested an intervention on a university campus that displayed print and digital messages with accurate information about how much student athletes were drinking. These messages were placed in locations students frequented and were shared in presentations by peer educators. This intervention resulted in a shift in perceptions of student athlete drinking behavior, and resulted in a decrease in alcohol consumption among student athletes (Perkins and Craig, 2006).
Sometimes making something seem like a social norm can backfire. If it is a behavior we want to change, but we think everyone is doing it, then we will see that bad behavior as a norm (Cialdini et al, 2006). For example, researchers studying the effectiveness of implicit bias training for reducing bias in organizations have found that emphasizing the idea that everyone is biased can normalize and increase bias. However, they also found that pairing an “everyone is biased” message with a transformative norm message explaining that people are committed to overcoming their bias can potentially counter this harmful norm (Duguid and Thomas-Hunt, 2015).
Work with the right messengers
A social norms strategy requires that we work with the right group messengers to model the behavior we want the group to take. Sometimes referred to as influencers and social referrants, these messengers have an outsized influence on what others in their groups see as socially acceptable or taboo (Paluck & Shepherd, 2012). These messengers can be official group leaders — like a manager, organizer or the most popular or famous — or they can be those with whom we have the strongest ties — friends and colleagues we like and regularly talk to.
One of the most powerful messengers in an organization with a high degree of influence over organizational norms is, of course, its leader. In 1992, the UNHCR High Commissioner Sadako Ogata said in a public statement, “As political settlements sprout in this new global environment of reconciliation, I see 1992 becoming the first year in a decade of repatriation for refugees.” Repatriation — the return of someone to their home country — levels rose significantly in the 1990s relative to the decades prior, and the ‘decade of ‘repatriation’ saw UNHCR colleagues adapt to the prominence of repatriation as a norm among possible durable solutions for refugee communities. While the emphasis on repatriation was a response to shifting norms in states and interstate relations and not solely a directive from the top, the shift in circumstance, policy and messaging coalesced to change the institutional norms of UNHCR.
While norms can be set by leaders, they are also set by those we work most closely with. Research tells us that people tend to show favoritism toward those in a social group who are most important to them. They see them as more trustworthy and credible. Those within the group that people have the strongest connections with have more power over what their networks see as normative (Paluck et al., 2016).
For example, Elizabeth Paluck and her colleagues conducted an experiment to see if they could reduce bullying at 56 middle schools in New Jersey by working with school influencers to model and share new behavior norms. The middle school students were asked who among their student peers they most enjoyed spending time with. These messengers, along with other randomly selected students, participated in a one-year intervention in which every other week a researcher worked with students to “identify common conflict behaviors at their school, so that the intervention could address the conflicts specific to each school.” Students were encouraged to take a public stance against bullying and conflict at their schools. Because these students who went through the training were already well-liked, their behaviors and messages transmitted through the schools quickly, reducing bullying by 30% at the treatment schools. (Paluck et al., 2016).
Messengers can also be fictional characters in our favorite stories. Characters in stories can demonstrate norms that we internalize and, as a result, shape our own behavior. “Harry Potter” is an example of a story that has been found to increase empathy among children. In a study, researchers had some student participants read a passage that included Harry Potter getting angry as he witnessed Draco’s prejudice toward Hermione when he called her a “filthy little Mudblood,” others read a passage unrelated to prejudice. Six weeks later the children were asked how they felt about students from other countries. Those who read the first passage had more positive feelings toward these students than those who read the second passage. The researchers found this was also true for adults exposed to the storyline who, following the study, reported being more open to gay people and refugees (Vezzali et al., 2015).
Whether real or fictional, accessing a coalition of messengers who can influence others’ patterns of beliefs is key to shifting a particular normscape.
How to build a social norms intervention
Below we provide six steps for building a norms change strategy. Social norms efforts have to be ongoing. We can not change norms with one-time interventions or a single story. Evaluate your strategy by monitoring the frequency of the desired behavior before, during and after the intervention. Identify qualitative and quantitative metrics that will allow you to see shifts in engagement with the behavior. This can be done through collecting anecdotes, observing behavior, conducting surveys and talking with community gatekeepers about changes they are seeing.
Step 1: Find the behavior gap
You need to identify the gap between what people are actually doing and the behavior you would like them to engage in. Note changes required to move people from what they are doing now to what you would like them to do.
Step 2: Find the right messengers
We recommend working with social scientists to do a network analysis to identify the right people to introduce the new behavior. If you cannot bring a social scientist into the project, conduct your own research to identify the people who are most liked in the community — those whom others trust and want to spend the most time with. Try to identify people who walk the walk and will likely engage in the action, not just talk about its virtues (Kraft-Tod et al., 2018).
If these messengers are not already engaging in the identified action you will first need to work with them to change their attitudes and perceptions of the behavior. In other words, you will have to get buy-in for this new behavior, and support them as they adopt it themselves. Once they have adopted the behavior, they can authentically introduce it to the community.
Step 3: Communicate and demonstrate the behavior
Work with your messengers to demonstrate the new behavior through ongoing interactions with the community. Introducing a new norm requires more than a one-off interaction. Support opportunities for the messengers to regularly demonstrate the new behavior for their community.
Step 4: Apply systems thinking to target your ‘new norm’
Work in the right system(s). Remember that norms are disseminated through interactions, culture and institutions. Depending on the context you are working within, the behavior you are trying to build a norm around and your goal, you will need to target your intervention in one or more of these systems. If you are working to change a norm at a highly bureaucratic institution where formal rules govern what people do and don’t do, you will likely need to focus your norms intervention on shifting perceptions among decision makers who set the rules. If you are trying to get a loosely connected community to engage in a behavior, you might identify their trusted messengers to disseminate the message, as well as to amplify stories in places where they are already paying attention.
Step 5: Tailor to your audience
Use the right framing when you communicate the new norm. If this is new to the group, use transformative norm messaging that tells them this is what others like them are starting to do. If this is a behavior that people in the community already engage in that you hope to scale, use a social norms message that highlights how many people are engaging in the behavior. If it’s relevant, use a moral norms message that shows the community that this is the right thing to do and others in their group are doing it.
Step 6: Amplify change
Amplify stories of people in the community engaging in the behavior. Highlight the actions you want people to start taking, and do not talk about the actions you want people to stop taking. People will generalize the actions of individuals in the stories to others in the group similar to them.
How might we use the six step framework within complex institutions?
Even when new policies are introduced, it’s unlikely behaviors will follow without influencing the social norms or rules that most people in your organization follow. A social norms approach to change will require identifying behaviors you would like a group of people to adopt, while increasing perceptions of that behavior as something members of their group do or are starting to do. We’ve all had endless guidance notes float through our inboxes that make no notable change to how we are operating. Whether you’re working on the role of ethics, sustainability, harassment or health — if you want to introduce new behaviors within your organizational culture, this six-step framework offers a starting point.
At UNHCR’s Innovation Service, the team has identified behaviors associated with creative ways of working and thinking to launch a social norms pilot study over the course of 2020–2021. The objective of the experiment is to increase the level of innovative behaviors and solutions in the organization by altering the way people work. The intervention will experiment with novel ways of conducting evaluation and creating behavior change over an extended period of time, and requires new approaches to communicating innovation that are rooted in social science research on norms change. By following these six steps, the team will test how norms associated with innovation can spread across teams and internal communities to change UNHCR’s culture.
What you are trying to achieve will require different change strategies. In this brief, we discussed an approach for shifting perceptions of norms as a way to change culture and behavior. As organizations begin building an environment for new norms, it’s important to identify where new behaviors will create the most value within a culture. These six steps can help you translate new norms into a culture that supports novel behaviors and ways of working — even in the most complex institutions.
For other change strategies, read our publications “The Science of Belief: Move Beyond ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ to ‘We,’” “Communicating Complexity in the Humanitarian Sector,” “The Back-of-the-Envelop Guide to Communications Strategy,” “The Science of What Makes People Care,” and more articles exploring how to apply insights from behavioral, cognitive and social science to challenges facing the humanitarian sector at “The Arc,” our joint Medium publication.
Works Cited
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