Social Norms: An Underestimated and Underemployed Lever for Managing Climate Change, by Griskevicius, etc.

Thomas J. Gardner                            Monday, October 3, 2011

Public Information Campaigns

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Thought Piece

Week 5

Social Norms: An Underestimated and Underemployed Lever for Managing Climate Change, by Griskevicius, etc.

What Griskevicius pondered, maybe a quirk of the intellectual community that believe communication with the less knowledgeable is a descent into the culture of the ignorant and uncivilized. While working at Wisconsin Public Television I was asked, how can the station encourage more black viewers to watch public television?

With utter disbelief that management had no social science knowledge, I suggested that first they should produce news and information shows that are of interest to black viewers while informing white viewers of cultural discrepancies. Second, I advised them to provide information about current shows in environments where the circumstances induce a social norm that advocates watching Public Broadcasting Service.

While television was used for the PSA of the “Iron Eyes Cody spot”, the 21^st centenary has Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to make repetitive manipulating messages.  The social norms of fishing organizers communicate well with their fishing and boating peers. Griskevicius clearly explains that people unwittingly adopt behavior that is foreign to them when exposed to effective models.

The everyday setting of a lake’s boating dock is a stage for tournament organizers to feature the actions of cleaning a boat.  The author is saying this will be an unconscious motivation to mirror others. To complement the action with written descriptive social norms is a normative strategy.  People will underestimate the effect of repetitive visual and text messages.

Publicly denigrating fisherpersons who do not clean their boats or dump their bait might work well with lake property owners. But I’m worried about how this persuasion tactic might fail with resentful fisherpersons. Beer commercials for bad beer are effective because the social message questions the man hood of those who have not purposefully committed to drinking the local swill.  Fishing organizers are in a good position to explain what many invasive species are, and why they are problematic.

The self-efficacy of fishing persons will be publicly emphasized to highlight their prevention efforts. Their Paul Revere proximity shares similar activities including dialog, physical mannerisms, and clothes to reinforce the social norms message.  There is a scene in the movie “Platoon” where the higher educated Lieutenant walks into a soldiers quarters full of rednecks wearing a college football t-shirt. According to Griskevicius, the Lieutenant would not have a strong impact upon the recipients because of his elitist representation.

The influential connector should illustrate the unfamiliar conditions and the uncertainty related to AIS, and the positive actions to take. The normative approach of strategic placing trained fishing organizers could honestly convey the message. Peer experiences, opinions and behaviors of tournament organizers are a gold mind of persuasive resources.