Leveraging social norms for sustainable behaviour: How the exposure to static-and-dynamic-norm communications influences (sufficient-based vs over) consumption practices of fashion items.
(A2025-124579)

AUTHORS

GIULIA GRANATO, TU Delft, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering; Ruth Mugge, Delft University of Technology

ABSTRACT

Communication channels from social media to newspapers are full of examples where static practices, showing the norm up to now (e.g., eat meat, drink alcohol at parties) are combined with dynamic trends in society, showing which behaviour is becoming more common between consumers (e.g., engage in more plant-based diets, or in alcohol-free events). Despite frequent exposure to these combined static-and-dynamic-norm communications, no scientific research has investigated the effect of this exposure on our behavior. Through two lab experiments, this research investigates 1) how the combination of static-and-dynamic-norm communications influence (sufficient-based vs over-) consumption practices of fashion items and 2) which combinations of static and dynamic social norms may be more effective in promoting more sustainable practices. Our results indicate that respondents chose a significantly lower number of fashion items when exposed to the combination of unsustainable static and unsustainable dynamic norm, than in the other experimental conditions.