The Effect of Social Norms on Society

The article, The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive Power of Social Norms, by Schultz, et al, explores the effect of social-norms marketing campaigns to moderate behaviors of individuals in society. Social-norms marketing campaigns, in many cases, actually increased the undesirable behaviors and misperceptions they set out to decrease. Perhaps the most notable failed campaign was the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program or D.A.R.E. The program intended prevent use of controlled drugs but achieved the opposite. Research by Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum in 1998, found that D.A.R.E. graduates were more likely than others to drink alcohol, smoke tobacco and use illegal drugs. Another, psychologist, Dr. William Colson, found that D.A.R.E. increased drug awareness for students and as they got a little older, became more curious about the drugs they had learned about from police officers. Research indicated that the police officers were unsuccessful in preventing the increased awareness and curiosity from being translated into illegal use. The evidence suggested that, by exposing young impressionable children to drugs, the program was, in fact, encouraging and nurturing drug use (Sherman, et. al, 1998). But even less hardcore scenarios such as the attempt by universities worldwide to combat collegiate binge drinking have also shown mixed results and even more recently when California raised the minimum age to buy cigarettes from 18 to 21.

Discussion: Is there anything that can be done to regulate the activities of a population, and if not, what should society do instead? Also, what are some examples of social-norms marketing campaigns that have been successful and how have they changed the world that we live in?