How Behaviors are Influenced by Perceived Norms

Normative restructuring strategies currently under way to combat alcohol-related problems among U.S. college students are based on the idea that students harbor inflated perceptions about the prevalence of drinking on campus and that if these misperceptions can be corrected, then alcohol consumption will decrease. Evidence for the effectiveness of these strategies is lacking, and there is little discussion in the literature about how or why people’s normative beliefs exert influence on their behaviors. The theory of normative social behavior that is proposed in this article includes three mechanisms—injunctive norms, outcome expectations, and group identity—that are hypothesized to moderate the influence of…