Just because participants say they would donate X amount in a hypothetical scenario, does not mean that they would in real life.

Supported by the concept of the intention-behaviour gap, whereby an individual's intentions to do a behaviour does not completely correlate with them actually doing the behaviour.

Kashif, M., Sarifuddin, S., & Hassan, A. (2015) found that intention to donate positively contributed towards actual donation behaviours, however this is a correlational finding not causation → The two did not match

Investigated the impact of social norm exposure on prosocial behaviour in 1 real life scenario and 4 economic games.

Good: real life secario extends their findings from economic games. Does not necessarily represent what they would do though

Found - social norm exposure group → increase in prosocial behaviours

Cons:
1) Participation fee- They gave them 50 cent at the start of the survey and then asked if they were willing to donate this at the end. Participants may feel that they earned this, decreasing their attitude to donate. This may have influenced the interaction between norms and prosocial behaviour of donating.
2)They made the social norm quite salient in their study, which may have increased the effect of demand characteristics on the participants subsequent behaviour. [i.e., the amount of donation may therefore be impacted by the demand characteristics]

If social norm exposure has an effect of increased donation to a hypothetical charity, real world charities can use this information to increase donations

E.g. increase social visibility of people who are donating to their charity so that their peers may be more encouraged to donate themselves too.

Some successful real world examples, for example: Wearing poppies, Facebook donations (where you see what friends have donated to a fundraiser)

A lot of the time studies do not use the same standardised measures to measure a concept, and these need to be changed and adapted for different situations (groups, behaviours, type of study) so we cant cross compare the effectiveness of a concept directly across studies or make conclusions. Some meta-analyses may be good to include in your essay but this is a good general limitation.

OR specify using TPB model of behaviour - ACTION, TARGET, CONTEXT TIME FRAME

societal variation in behavior is potentially due to societal differences in the cultural evolution of social norms - Henrich et al., 2010

Descriptive norms - communicate patterns of behavior that individuals want to conform to on the condition that most other people also perform the behavior

Injunctive norms - communicate what one should do in a given situation

These norms influence our behavior by changing our social expectations. They change our expectations of how others behave (referred to as empirical expectations — our beliefs about what others do). They also change our expectations of how others expect us to behave (referred to as normative expectations — our beliefs about what others believe) [23].

In Studies 1 to 3, participants decided how much to donate to charities before learning that others donated generously or stingily. Participants who observed generous donations donated more than those who observed stingy donations (Studies 1 and 2). Crucially, this generalized across behaviors: Participants who observed generous donations later wrote more supportive notes to another participant (Study 3). In Studies 4 and 5, participants observed empathic or non-empathic group responses to vignettes. Group empathy ratings not only shifted participants’ own empathic feelings (Study 4), but they also influenced participants’ donations to a homeless shelter (Study 5). These findings reveal the remarkable breadth of prosocial conformity.

Moderating factors: group identification and moral self-concept

Empirical expectations motivate prosocial behavior, with people being more likely to give to charity themselves when they learn that most other people give to charity. Capraro (2019, Bailey said in Bartke and colleagues, 2017

In one DG study with adults, descriptive norms motivated giving more than did injunctive norms [31], while in another study the opposite was true [32]. Bailey House, 2018

In one TG, adult participants initially underestimated how many recipients would return money to them [35•]. However, after receiving feedback about what recipients would actually do (i.e. information about a descriptive norm) participants increased their expectations of how many recipients would return money, and increased their rates of giving, as well.

n a TG, whether or not participants gave was better predicted by whether they thought that they should give, and not as well predicted by whether they wanted to give Lecture and paper

Bernier and Avard (1986) examined the relation betweenself-efficacy and weight change at baseline and during treatmentfor 62 women enrolled in a 10-week weight loss program. Theyfound that higher self-efficacy at baseline was associated withgreater weight loss during treatment and that higher self-efficacy atthe end of the program was associated with greater weight loss ata 6-week follow-up assessment.

Jeffery and colleagues examinedself-efficacy, weight loss, and weight maintenance in 89 partici-pants enrolled in a 15-week weight loss program (Jeffery et al.,1984). They found that higher pretreatment emotional and situa-tional self-efficacy and higher posttreatment situational self-efficacy were associated with greater weight loss at the end oftreatment and at 1-year follow-up.

Scales used: Items were modified from the Weight EfficacyLife-Style Questionnaire (Clark et al., 1991). Because the Weight EfficacyLife-Style Questionnaire items assessed eating self-efficacy only, modifieditems were added to assess confidence in ability to follow exercise as wellas eating plans in difficult situations. They weighted ppts and also monitored self weight loss behaviours like weighing themselves and calorie counting (self-reported) - may have been reminded by this to do as they are apart of the study, NOT because of overcoming barriers??

large sample of men and women (N
349)enrolled in a weight loss trial

FOUND: Consistent with prior findings (Chao et al., 2000; Schwarzer &Renner, 2000; Shannon et al., 1990; Stotland & Zuroff, 1991), ourcross-sectional analyses revealed that self-efficacy for both eatingbehaviors (confidence in following eating plan under varyingconditions) and exercise behaviors (confidence in following exer-cise plan under varying conditions) were significantly associatedwith weight loss program monitoring behaviors, such as days oftracking adherence to diet or physical activity plans constructed inthe weight control intervention described above. Associations,though not as strong, were also observed for specific diet andexercise behaviors (e.g., fat intake or recent exercise).

Correlations between a concept and behaviour change - not causation. Could be that individuals change behaviour resulting in changes in beliefs, such as self efficacy (can overcome barriers as i did the behaviour)

public policies have been shown to have large effects on health behaviors. When governments tax cigarettes, smoking rates drop. Restrictions on where people are allowed to smoke also lower cigarette consumption. People respond to prices and regulations, even if they do not respond to reinforcing messages Cutler 2004