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Normative beliefs are individuals' beliefs about the extent to which other people who are important to them think they should or should not perform particular behaviors. In general, researchers who measure normative beliefs also measure motivations to comply-how much individuals wish to behave consistently with the prescriptions of important others. Each normative belief about an important other is multiplied by the person's motivation to comply with that important other and the products are summed across all of the person's important others to result in a general measure that predicts subjective norms. Subjective norm is a predictor of intention to behave which, in turn, is a predictor of actual behavior. Thus, normative beliefs have two general uses. In the first place, normative beliefs aid in the prediction of other variables (subjective norm, intention, and behavior). Secondly, for those who wish to perform interventions, the measurement of normative beliefs provides information about where intervention efforts should be focused; efforts should be focused on those normative beliefs that the population of interest has and that are good predictors of subjective norm (and behavioral intention and behavior) rather than on beliefs that are not widespread in the population of interest or that are not good predictors of subjective norm.
Normative variables have been an important concept in social
psychology for at least a century. For example, LeBon
(1895)
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LeBon, G. (1895). The crowd. London: F. Unwin. documented
an effect he called contagion-that people in a crowd are strongly
affected by the beliefs, emotions, and behaviors of others
in that crowd. However, the specific concept of normative
beliefs did not gain prominence until the advent of Fishbein's
theory of reasoned action (see Fishbein,
1980
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Fishbein, M. (1980). Theory of reasoned action: Some applications
and implications. In H. Howe & M. Page (Eds.), Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation, 1979 (pp. 65-116). Lincoln,
NE: University of Nebraska Press. ; Fishbein
& Ajzen, 1975
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Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention,
and behavior: An introduction to theory and research.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. for reviews). Fishbein
proposed that the immediate determinant of behavior is behavioral
intention.
Behavioral intention is determined by a
combination of attitude and subjective norm. Attitude, in
turn, is determined by behavioral beliefs and evaluations
whereas subjective norms are determined by normative beliefs
and motivations to comply (as explained in the foregoing paragraph).
Although various theorists have added variables to the theory
(see Trafimow,
2000
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Trafimow, D. (2000). A theory of attitudes, subjective norms,
and private versus collective self-concepts. In D. J. Terry
and M. A. Hogg (Eds.) Attitudes, Behavior, and Social
Context: The Role of Norms and Group Membership, (pp.
47-65). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. for
a review), normative beliefs have been, and continue to be,
a crucial variable that is receiving an increasing amount
of attention.
There has been a considerable amount of controversy over
whether normative beliefs are a concept that is distinct from
behavioral beliefs (beliefs about the consequences
of a behavior). The controversy stems from a higher level
distinction between attitudes and subjective norms that is
an assumption not only of the theory of reasoned action, but
of several other important theories too (Fishbein,
1980
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Fishbein, M. (1980). Theory of reasoned action: Some applications
and implications. In H. Howe & M. Page (Eds.), Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation, 1979 (pp. 65-116). Lincoln,
NE: University of Nebraska Press. ; Fishbein,
& Ajzen, 1975
xClose
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention,
and behavior: An introduction to theory and research.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. ; Triandis,
1980
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Triandis, H. C. (1980). Values, attitudes, and interpersonal
behavior. In H. E. Howe & M. M. Page (Eds.), Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation 1979 (pp. 195-259). Lincoln,
Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ; Fazio,
1990
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Fazio, R. H. (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes
guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework.
In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social
psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 75-109). San Diego: Academic
Press. ). Because normative beliefs (and motivations
to comply) are presumed to determine subjective norms and
behavioral beliefs (and evaluations) are presumed to determine
attitudes, if it could be shown that normative beliefs and
behavioral beliefs are really different names for the same
construct, then this would constitute a strong argument against
the distinction between attitudes and subjective norms and,
by implication, the theory of reasoned action would be undermined.
In fact, all theories that depend on the distinction between
attitudes and subjective norms would be cast into doubt.
In this vein, Miniard
and Cohen (1981)
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Miniard, P. W., & Cohen, J. B. (1981). An examination of the
Fishbein behavioral intentions model's concept and measures.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 309-329.
showed that normative beliefs and behavioral
beliefs are so similar to each other that they are really
the same thing. For instance, consider the following two beliefs:
"my father thinks I should go to college" and "if I do not
go to college my father will disagree with me." According
to the theory of reasoned action, the former belief is a normative
belief (it is a belief about what my father thinks I should
do) whereas the latter belief is a behavioral belief (it is
a belief about a consequence arising from my father's likely
reaction to my behavior). Yet, it could be argued that the
difference between the two beliefs is more a matter of the
wording and sentence structure than about the content. If
this is so, then the distinction between the two types of
beliefs is artificial and should be discarded.
Throughout the 1980s this remained an unsettled issue and
one that was usually argued on the basis of semantic arguments
and correlations among theory of reasoned action variables.
But recently, evidence has been obtained from a variety of
research settings, including experimental paradigms, which
have converged to provide strong support for the validity
of the distinction (Trafimow,
1994
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CONFIRM Trafimow, D. (1994). Predicting
intentions to use a condom from perceptions of normative pressure
and confidence in those perceptions. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 24, 2151-2163. ; Trafimow &
Fishbein, 1994a
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Trafimow, D., & Fishbein, M. (1994). The moderating effect
of behavior type on the subjective norm-behavior relationship.
The Journal of Social psychology, 134, 755-763. ;
1994b
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Trafimow, D., & Fishbein, M. (1994). The importance of risk
in determining the extent to which attitudes affect intentions
to wear seat belts. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
24, 1-11. ; 1995
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Trafimow, D., & Fishbein, M. (1995). Do people really distinguish
between behavioral and normative beliefs? British Journal
of Social Psychology, 34, 257-266. ; see Trafimow,
1998
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Trafimow, D. (1998). Attitudinal and normative processes in
health behavior. Psychology and Health, 13, 307-317.
; 2000
xClose
Trafimow, D. (2000). A theory of attitudes, subjective norms,
and private versus collective self-concepts. In D. J. Terry
and M. A. Hogg (Eds.) Attitudes, Behavior, and Social
Context: The Role of Norms and Group Membership, (pp.
47-65). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. for
reviews). At the present time, the distinction is widely accepted
and normative beliefs have an important place in theories
of behavior and behavior change.
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