Do as I Do, not as I Think: Disentangling the Impact of Different Types of Social Norms on Customer Environmental Consumption

Research has shown that social norms (i.e. perceptions of other people’s opinions about a specific behaviour), play an important role in shaping pro-environmental consumption. However past studies have focussed largely on subjective norms, formed by referring to known relatives such as friends and family. The present paper extends this research by investigating the impact of different types of social norms such as local norms (reference to local neighbours and communities), and by differentiating between injunctive norms (perception of other’s opinions) and descriptive norms (perception of others’ behaviour). The present research aims to disentangle the influence of each of these types of social norms on pro-environmental behaviour. Findings reveal that descriptive norms are the most powerful in this context. This demonstrates that social influence in pro-environmental consumption is therefore a matter of imitation of others rather than of persuasion by others.