Boosting safety behaviour: Descriptive norms encourage child booster seat usage amongst low involvement parents

Campaigns advocating behavioural changes often employ social norms as a motivating technique, favouring injunctive norms (what is typically approved or disapproved) over descriptive norms (what is typically done). Here, the authors investigate an upside to including descriptive norms in health and safety appeals. Because descriptive norms are easy to process and understand, they should provide a heuristic to guide behaviour in those individuals who lack the interest or motivation to reflect on the advocated behaviour more deeply. When those descriptive norms are positive – suggesting that what is done is consistent with what ought to be done – including them in campaigns should be particularly beneficial at influencing this low-involvement segment. The authors test this proposition via research examining booster seat use amongst parents with children of booster seat age, and find that incorporating positive descriptive norms into a related campaign is particularly impactful for parents who report low involvement in the topic of booster seat safety. Descriptive norms are easy to state and easy to understand, and their research suggests that these norms resonate with low involvement individuals. As a result, they recommend incorporating descriptive norms when possible into health and safety campaigns.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2016.03.006
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751630077X
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00014575
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Jeffrey, Jennifer
  • Whelan, Jodie
  • Pirouz, Dante M
  • Snowdon, Anne W
• Publication Date: 2016-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 184-188
• Serial:
  • Accident Analysis & Prevention
  • Volume: 92
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0001-4575
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00014575

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Booster seats; Highway safety; Parents; Safety campaigns
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01599405
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 20 2016 3:52PM