Contraceptive use among young women in Nairobi remains low despite high general knowledge of family planning (FP) methods. This paper draws on social norms theory to explore the role of key influencers (partners, parents and friends) in women’s FP use and how women anticipate normative reactions or sanctions. A qualitative study with 16 women, 10 men and 14 key influencers across 7 peri-urban wards in Nairobi, Kenya. Interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 by phone. A thematic analysis was conducted. Women identified parents, specifically mothers, aunts, partners, friends and healthcare workers as key influencers on FP. Their interactions with these key influencers varied based on trust, the information they needed about FP, and whether they perceived a key influencer to perpetuate or challenge existing social norms on FP. Mothers were perceived to understand the social risks of using FP and thus could advise on discreet FP use, and aunts were trusted and approachable sources to impartially describe the benefits and drawbacks of FP. Although women identified partners as key FP decision makers, they were cognisant of possible power imbalances affecting a final FP choice. FP interventions should consider the normative influence key actors have on women’s FP choices. Opportunities to design and deliver network-level interventions which seek to engage with social norms surrounding FP in order to challenge misconceptions and misinformation among key influencers should be explored. Intervention design should consider dynamics of secrecy, trust and emotional closeness that mediate discussions of FP to address changing norms. Further training to change norms held by healthcare providers about why women, in particular unmarried young women, access FP should be provided to reduce barriers for FP access. Women’s decisions to use family planning (FP) are influenced by social norms, the unwritten rules of appropriate actions within social networks, and are shaped by advice and information received from key influencers—important individuals who shape what is acceptable within social networks. The aim of this study was to understand how key influencers uphold and transmit information and norms about FP, and explore who women consult as they make FP decisions and why they consult these key influencers. We interviewed 16 women, 10 partners and 14 key influencers in peri-urban Nairobi, Kenya. We found that key influencers for decisions about FP included mothers, aunts, partners, friends and healthcare providers. In making a decision about FP use, women consulted key influencers based on who they deemed trustworthy to keep their FP use secret and described less trust to speak with men about FP in their social networks. Mothers understood the social risks of using FP and so could advise on its discreet use, and aunts were approachable sources of impartial information about FP. Although women identified partners as key decision makers, they were aware that power imbalances might affect final FP choices. Our findings underscore the importance of FP interventions working with women’s social networks and to address social norms influencing women’s decisions in using FP. Interventions to change FP norms should consider dynamics of secrecy, trust and emotional closeness that affect FP discussions among women’s networks.

Access to information about family planning (FP) continues to have financial, physical and social barriers among young women living in Kenya. This paper draws on social norms theory to explore how young women and their social networks access FP information on digital media (e.g., WhatsApp, websites). Qualitative phone interviews were conducted with 40 participants - young women, their partners and key influencers - in seven peri-urban wards in Nairobi, Kenya. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings suggested that young women, their partners and key influencers predominately accessed FP information online through their informal networks, but identified healthcare workers as the most trusted sources of FP information. In digital spaces, participants described being more comfortable sharing FP information as digital spaces allowed for greater privacy and reduced stigma to talk about FP openly. Our findings highlight the importance of digital media in disseminating FP information among young women and their networks, the differences in norms governing the acceptability to talk about FP online vs. in-person and the significance of targeting misinformation about FP in digital media spaces.

: Rule compliance (in organizations or society at large) may be strengthened or weakened by social contagion processes. Observing others’ (non-)compliance with rules influences one’s own likelihood of compliance. Extant literature shows two social contagion theories that can explain this phenomenon. First, the theory of normative conduct (TNC) (Cialdini et al. 1990) suggests that people interpret the observed behaviour of others (i.e. the descriptive norm) as adaptive for that context, resulting in rational imitation. Second, Goal Framing Theory (GFT) (Lindenberg and Steg 2007) suggests that we should look not just at the contagion of concrete behaviour but at the process that governs the contagion of the very goal to comply with norms and legitimate rules. This is particularly important because it predicts that observed (non-)compliance regarding one rule also affects (non-)compliance with other rules (‘cross-norm effects’). Because the goal to comply tends to decay, it needs continuous support from the observation of other people’s respect for norms and legitimate rules. Compliance and non-compliance are thus both self-reinforcing mechanisms. This has clear implications for policy which are discussed in this chapter, most notably the importance of a focus on legitimizing rules, so that they are interpreted as norms by the general public.

One way to enhance rule compliance is to provide people with arguments explaining why the desired behavior is important. We argue that there might be another, potentially more effective way to enhance rule compliance: ask people to generate arguments in favor of the rule themselves, which can trigger a process of self-persuasion. We compared the effects of providing arguments, asking respondents to generate arguments themselves, and a combination of both approaches on rule compliance and the perceived importance of the rule. A field experiment revealed that rule compliance was higher in all experimental conditions compared to a control condition, with the highest level of rule compliance in the conditions that either presented the arguments or asked people to generate arguments themselves. Yet the rule was only evaluated as more important compared to the control condition, when people generated arguments themselves. This study suggests that rule compliance and perceived importance of this rule can be enhanced by easy low-cost interventions.

We studied to what extent perceived adoption norms affect the likelihood of adopting sustainable innovations, next to evaluations of the instrumental, environmental and symbolic attributes of these innovations.As hypothesised, results showed that people are more likely to adopt a sustainable innovation the more they evaluate the attributes of these sustainable innovations favourably and the more they think significant others would consider adoption (i.e., when adoption norms are strong).Moreover, we hypothesised and found that positive evaluations of the symbolic attributes are more likely to promote the adoption of sustainable innovations when people expect that few significant others would consider adoption.These findings suggest that weak adoption norms that are typical in the early adoption stage may both inhibit and promote adoption of sustainable innovations, via different routes.

This chapter focuses on social norms and people's tendency to conform to pro-environmental behaviour. It explains what social norms are, how they influence (environmental) behaviour, and when. Social norms are rules and standards that are understood by members of a group, and that guide and/or constrain human behaviour without the force of laws. Although norms can exert a powerful influence on (environmental) behaviour, people tend to underestimate their own susceptibility to social pressure. The chapter examines several moderators that have been found to affect the strength of normative social influence. It focuses specifically on pro-environmental behaviour, and illustrates the effects with examples from recent studies. When designing messages to promote pro-environmental behaviour, it is essential that information regarding corresponding descriptive norms is in line with the targeted behaviour.

Many organizations strive for Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER). This can make organizational processes and procedures more pro-environmental, but does it also promote employees’ pro-environmental behaviour? We reason that CER can encourage employees to act pro-environmentally at work by increasing the likelihood that they consider the environmental consequences of their behaviour. In two studies, we test to what extent CER affects pro-environmental behaviour at work, and whether this depends on the extent to which employees value nature and the environment (i.e., endorse biospheric values). Both studies show that stronger biospheric values and perceived CER are related to more self-reported pro-environmental behaviour at work. Interestingly, the relationship between perceived CER and self-reported pro-environmental behaviour was stronger among those with moderate to weak biospheric values. These results suggest that relative weak biospheric values are less likely to inhibit pro-environmental behaviour at work when employees believe that their organization aims to realize CER.

This chapter demonstrates an approach to the agent-based modelling of norm transmission using decision trees learned from questionnaire data. We explore the implications of adding norm dynamics implied in static questionnaire data and the influence social network topology has on the outcome. We find that parameters determining network topology influence the outcome in both hierarchical and co-worker networks in a simulated workplace. As an exercise in empirical agent-based modelling, this work highlights the importance of gathering data on interactions in field studies.

The conceptual model on motivations to adopt sustainable innovations (Noppers et al., 2014) proved to be successful in explaining proxies of the adoption of sustainable innovations: positive evaluations of the utility (instrumental attributes), environmental impact (environmental attributes), and specifically the extent to which the innovation says something about a person (symbolic attributes) increased interest in and intention to adopt sustainable innovations. In this paper, we examined to what extent the evaluations of these three attributes can also explain the actual adoption of smart energy systems that facilitate sustainable energy use. Results showed that adopters of smart energy systems (who agreed to participate in a project in which these systems were tested) evaluated the symbolic attributes of these systems more positively than non-adopters (who did not participate in this project), while both groups did not differ in their evaluation of the instrumental and environmental attributes of smart energy systems. A logistic regression analysis indicated that only evaluations of the symbolic attributes explained actual adoption of smart energy systems. Policy could stress and enhance the symbolic attributes of sustainable innovations to encourage adoption.

Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour at work can result in a significant reduction in environmental problems. Research revealed that general environmental considerations such as biospheric values and environmental self-identity are important antecedents of private pro-environmental behaviour. Yet, the question remains whether such general environmental considerations also predict pro-environmental behaviour at work. We propose a parsimonious theoretical model (the VIP-model) in which biospheric values affect personal norms to behave pro-environmentally at work and pro-environmental actions via the environmental self-identity. A study involving a diverse sample of employees from different European organizations supported the VIP-model, showing that biospheric values and environmental self-identity influence personal norms, and that stronger personal norms encouraged various self-reported pro environmental behaviours at work to some extent. The VIP-model yields promising, cost-efficient strategies to encourage pro-environmental behaviour at work. (C) 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The understanding, prediction, and encouragement of pro-environmental behaviour (i.e., behaviour that impacts the environment as little as possible) depend to a large extent on understanding the motivational dynamics of pro-environmental behaviour. In this review paper, we discuss the state of the art with regard to these dynamics. We explain the importance of three types of goals underlying behaviour: the hedonic goal to feel good, the gain goal to enhance one's resources, and the normative goal to act appropriately. The strength of these goals differs across situation, which affects which aspects in the situation people attend to, how they evaluate these aspects, and which choices they make. We describe factors affecting the strength of goals, and how the normative goal to act appropriately can be strengthened so as to encourage sustained pro-environmental actions. More specifically, we propose that values affect the chronic strength of goals. Besides, various situational factors can affect the strength of goals in a particular situation. These situational factors explain why people do not have stable preferences and why they do not always act upon the values they prioritise. Finally, we discuss strategies that can be employed to encourage pro-environmental actions. These strategies are either aimed at reducing the conflict between different goals by aligning the hedonic and/or gain goal with the normative goal, or at strengthening the normative goal so that people will act pro-environmentally even though this may reduce the realisation of their hedonic or gain goals.

This chapter provides a theoretical framework to explain workplace proenvironmental behavior (WPEB).It first discusses psychological factors that have proved to be successful in predicting private sphere pro-environmental behaviors, by looking at value theories, goal-framing theory, theories on habits, and theories that assume that behavior results from (individual, social, normative, and hedonic) cost-benefits analyses.Next, it argues that specific contextual characteristics of the workplace may affect (the influence of these factors on) WPEB by affecting the relative strength of people's normative, gain, and hedonic goals.Such characteristics are: the limited level of autonomy over WPEB, the high levels of formally shaped social interactions, and reduced levels of self-control at the workplace.The chapter argues it is crucial to consider the interaction between individual factors and contextual factors in order to enhance our understanding of pro-environmental behavior in organizations.

We investigated motivations of potential earlier and later adopters for adopting sustainable innovations. A large questionnaire study revealed that potential earlier adopters of innovative cars evaluated the symbolic attributes of electric cars, but not the instrumental and environmental attributes, more favorably than later adopters. Evaluations of these three electric car attributes predicted the adoption likelihood of potential earlier and later adopters in a similar way. However, potential earlier adopters' evaluations of symbolic attributes predicted their interest (but not their intention) in an electric car more strongly when they perceived more instrumental drawbacks. Apparently, instrumental drawbacks, which are typical at the introduction stage, are not only a barrier for earlier adopters; such drawbacks can enhance interest in an electric car because of what the car can say about them. This suggests that symbolic attributes of sustainable innovations should be stressed as this is likely to promote their adoption.