An introduction to social norms
This section of the toolkit helps you to build a more detailed understanding of the theory around social norms programming.
Where do social norms fit in to MSI’s behaviour change framework?
At MSI, we look at communications through the lens of behaviours. We have certain behaviours that we want our target audience to start doing. This is why we developed the MSI behaviour change framework.
A quick refresher:
Human behaviour is complex. An individual’s behaviour is shaped by social factors (including, but not limited to, social norms) as well as by broader environmental factors.
A successful behaviour change intervention normally works to influence multiple levels, as shown by the diagram above. Keep this in mind: the final messaging strategy/ project/ activity you settle on, might be more successful if you address multiple barriers at once.
What is a social norm?
It is not always easy to differentiate social norms from rumours, myths, superstitions, religious norms,… But it is really important to do so, as you can only successfully address social norms barriers by approaching them in a very different way from all these other influences. Social norms are also not always barriers – sometimes, you can leverage a positive social norm to help our work. You can learn all about these approaches in the section on Ways of addressing social norms through SBCC activities.
If you’re not sure if the barrier you’re dealing with is a social norm or not, you can use this tool to check!
How Social Norms Change Works
This section provides a theoretical framework to keep in mind while we think about activities that address social norms.
How does social norm change actually happen?
There are 4 phases:
Phase 1: Change social expectations
A successful social norms intervention shifts both individual attitudes and social expectations. In this phase, the programme aims to leverage individual-level opportunities and take them up to the community level – remember the socio-ecological influence model. It is in this phase that some individuals will start acting according to our desired behaviour, either despite or because of how it was presented in relation to the relevant social norm.
Triggering change: before you can create a core group within the community that can drive further behaviour change, you need to trigger a need for change or to open conversations.
When designing activities to do this, here are some key considerations:
- Initiate dialogue, either with individuals or in groups – get people talking
- Dispel misconceptions or inaccurate beliefs relating to the harmful behaviour
- Avoid reinforcing and normalising the negative behaviour by insisting on its high prevalence
- Do not criticise people’s cultures or beliefs. Rather, demonstrate that the new behaviour is in line with community values, e.g., delaying childbirth is safer for mother and child
Broadening the scope: fundamentally, norms shift at group level. Involving a wider community is key. Some considerations:
- Think about your target audiences: go back to your reference group analysis and consider including different activities for multiple groups
- Identify influencers and agents of change from within the community to lead the programme
- Create safe spaces for critical reflection among community members: Enable reflection, deliberation and debate among key individuals and groups
- Seek change at the whole-community level, to ensure new behaviours are widely accepted
- Be aware of power imbalances relating to gender and age (for example, young people’s agency is often a lot more limited in speaking up about these topics)
Can talking about a negative norm, risk reinforcing it?
Yes, it definitely could. The rule of thumb is: if most people are against it, let everyone know. If not, campaign to start changing individual attitudes, but don’t focus on how widespread the behaviour is – rather on promising alternatives. If the negative norm is based on perceptions, not reality, then showing that the majority do not actually adhere to the norm. A good example of this was PSI’s “Chill” project in Kenya, targeting 10-14 year-olds. There was a perception that kids their age were all having sex and that by not being sexually active, you were uncool. But in fact, very few kids were having sex at that age and by using likeable characters to reinforce it and language that made it “cool” to abstain (“ what’s the rush? I’m chilling”) they shifted the perception around this.
Phase 2: Publicise the change
Once you start seeing change, it is time to shout it from the roof tops.
Who should be spreading the word?
- Coordinate the shift among people ready to change, in a visible manner: amplify, give a platform to champions/role models and the benefits of new behaviours
- Develop a diffusion strategy to build knowledge of the change in similar and neighbouring communities
- Use trendsetters, first movers, influential small groups or popular media to amplify the buzz
- Don’t work with everyone and anyone, but the key stakeholders necessary to make a difference: the positive deviants and role models to put forward; the influencers which will help you be heard; the powerholders to reassure and partner with; the existing organised groups to start the local dynamic with; the leaders to steer the process; the young and marginalised community members to empower.
Phase 3: Build a supportive environment
To ensure the norm change is sustainable, we should take care that the messages we spread through our activities, can be embedded in the community fabric.
- Provide opportunities for the new behaviour to be carried out by people beyond the original reference network
- Help create new rewards and sanctions and ensure they are monitored and carried out by relevant members of the community
- Form guardian coalitions with influential actors that will advocate for the new norm in and outside of the community
Phase 4: Evaluate, improve and evolve
For more details on this, please refer to the dedicated Monitoring your impact page.
- Evaluate programme success and scale-up opportunities – see measuring social norms page
- To change norms at scale, embed the programme into national systems, supported by social movements and coalitions of partners. But the initial tactic might be to create a proof of concept in pilot areas. Make your interventions scalable from the start, try them out, and if they work, sell them to the right people at the top.
Social Norms at MSI
This section is for anyone who wants to get an overview of MSI’s social norms work, and the thinking behind it. It is particularly useful for those of you who need to talk about our work externally!
- We work with communities, for communities, and this is deeply embedded in our ways of working
- We use data to inform decision-making and tracking impact
- We leverage, shift, and counter social norms as relevant
- We engage not just our primary target audience, but their influencers too
- We are led by the country programmes to ensure we leverage existing opportunities in the communities to further MSI’s mission
Our theoretical frameworks
At MSI, we look at communications through the lens of behaviours. This is why we developed the behaviour change framework. A quick refresher below, full guidance is saved here.
An individual’s behaviour is shaped by social factors (including, but not only, social norms) as well as by broader environmental factors.
A successful behaviour change intervention works to affect multiple levels, as shown by the diagram above.
Our behaviour change frameworks are complemented by our work on strengthening health systems at different levels. This HSS (health-system strengthening) framework is divided according to the socio-ecological model as well.
As the diagram shows, the strategy for sustainable demand is made up of three key components: government partnerships (capacity-building); community engagement; and gender and social norms. Social norms are an essential feature of our strategy to build a long-term enabling environment, where individuals are empowered and free to choose the SRH services that are right for them.
How we work
In the contexts we work in, communities tend to be tight-knit, and powerful social norms make up the fabric that keeps the community running. This means that successful social norms interventions need to address more than one level at the same time: individual, interpersonal, community and/or institutional levels.
Individual level
MSI wants to empower individuals, championing positive deviants, and giving people the opportunity to assess for themselves if a social norm is worth challenging. By amplifying satisfied clients’ testimonials during mobilisation activities, we work to turn these women into our most effective community advocates, driving SRH norm change.
The numbers speak for themselves: 25% of adolescents and women without children taking up FP services in the Sahel cited personal recommendation as the most important source of information for them. This is especially important for more sceptical or underserved groups, such as nulliparous women (see chart), who may face extraordinary normative pressure to have children as soon as possible. Typically, MSI sees a limited number of ‘early adopters’ on the first 2-3 visits to a site. Subsequent visits see FP uptake increase significantly, stimulating community demand, and creating its own momentum.
In outreach service sites in rural Niger, where MSI expanded operations 3 years ago, the number of women and girls taking up FP services has doubled (from 15 to 30/team/day) in the last 18 months, and 80% of users now report community support and encouragement for modern contraceptive use.
Interpersonal level
We pay attention to the actors we can and should involve, beyond our core target audience to key community-level influencers, but we ensure that the less obviously powerful are involved too. Through thorough reference group analysis, we have developed interventions that involve mothers-in-law, male peers and other community members whose influence is most prevalent at the interpersonal level. Our work in the Sahel on the La Famille Idéale intervention is a great example of this. La Famille Ideale is a suite of participatory tools for use by community mobilisers. The tools (a board game and facilitated couples’ conversation) target adolescent women directly as well as their husbands and other key influencers (such as mothers-in-law). LFI is being used by all four of MSI’s programmes in the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal) to create awareness and demand for the quality contraception services offered by MSI teams. Used by community mobilisers ahead of MSI outreach visits, the tool has proven successful in creating an enabling environment for conversations where young girls have no decision-making power. An initial evaluation found: (i) a 25% increase in adolescent reach in those sites using the tool; and (ii) the creation of community dialogue that was successful at dispelling myths about contraception.
The tools involve husbands in a discussion about FP, to show that husbands can and should be a part of these discussions; explore who can use FP, when and for what reason, challenging the norm that young couples should wait to use FP until they have multiple children; model the role mothers-in-law can play to support FP uptake, by exploring the role of this key reference group; and focus on the benefits of FP for birth spacing, shifting individual understandings and beliefs to give people the confidence to challenge the norm themselves.
Beyond the family, we aim to leverage existing opportunities in the community to create new champions where we can. Nigeria’s work on the Gagarabadau projet is a great example. Gagarabadau uses three complementary strategies, Tea Vendor business training, mobiliser-led peer to peer conversations and the diffusion of the term ‘Gagarabadau’ (a Hausa term used to describe a respected man) to engage men and address social norms linking large families to men’s status and the role of women in family decision-making and income generation. Results from a qualitative evaluation indicate that the intervention successfully engaged Tea Vendors and their wives to create community family planning champions. The community discussions that took place because of this engagement were able to start to overcome negative social norms related to family size and status, instead promoting that a responsible man is one who spaces births to have a healthy and successful family. This was reinforced by the peer-to-peer discussions and a wide and varied diffusion of the term ‘Gagarabadau’. Further, the emphasis placed during the training on shared decision-making saw Tea Vendor wives start to play a greater role in family business decisions and supported many to set up their own small business. This was a powerful way to role model these positive behaviours. Activities generated almost 4,000 referrals for FP services during a nine-month pilot, of which 47% were confirmed redeemed at nearby healthcare facilities.
Community level
MSI invests the time to understand each local context and work in collaboration with government and community partners to identify key leaders and influencers, crafting appropriate and culturally sound messages to create buy-in and support. This is a key driver of the longevity of any partnership. We engage community structures to gain acceptance, identify and create advocates who speak up in support of the activities. In certain conservative settings, this may only mean tacit acceptance from leaders – but any resistance from the community can prevent implementation.
This includes community partnerships, which can be great ways to find champions, opportunities, and ensure local adaptations. Leveraging their existing linkages with youth through routine activities or special events, MSI coordinates service provision with mobilization events that are taking place for adolescents. In Senegal for example, MSI works closely with the Centre Conseils des Ados to organize discussions about a range of topics including SRH, FGM, child marriage, SGBV and then provides services in discreet rooms within the Centre’s premises.
Community leaders are of course key actors in any social norm change work, being part of the reference group for many social norms we work on. Getting them on board can boost change and trickle down to the broader community. An example is our work in Zambia. Marie Stopes Zambia works with the health facility team to share local statistics on adolescent SRH like adolescent ANC attendance or deliveries (proxy measures to highlight the burden of teenage pregnancy) with community leaders during engagement meetings.
In addition, community leaders are engaged in a ”path game” activity here to understand the adolescent SRH journey and the challenges they face These are exercises that build empathy and understanding for adolescents among leaders, allowing them to walk in the shoes of young women and understand how the rights of adolescents align with the priorities of their community – but not necessarily with the current hindering social norms.
Institutional level
Where possible, we work with our Advocacy Team colleagues to publicise social norms change and work with institutions to embed social norms theory and practice. All of our country programmes work with community health workers (or their equivalent). We try to influence the CHWs’ experience at higher levels. We work with the national- and district levels to advocate for better, more-FP-integrated/focused training packages, and look for opportunities to increase government ownership of CHW payments. Most CPs will have worked on building CHW capacity through training. A stand-out example is Ghana, where the CP worked with the Ghana Health Service to develop a joint framework for SBCC and a roll-out/cascading plan for training.
How we assess our impact
Social norms interventions are notoriously hard to evaluate. Change happens incrementally over a long period of time, and not all social norms interventions will lead to immediate service uptake increases. We draw from sector best practices as well as MSI’s strong data systems to find ways to monitor and evaluate the impact of social norms activities, with the strategy often bespoke to a given intervention.
The SNAP approach
All of our approaches are rooted in the SNAP analysis framework and accompanied by a robust theory of change (ToC). This allows us to capture small changes that according to the ToC will lead to bigger future impact. We use an adapted version of CARE’s SNAP analysis framework. There are 4 steps to a SNAP approach informing evaluations:
SNAP framework: created to break down the social norms the project is trying to address.
Mixed method evaluation design: identifying relevant data sources; often including a simple vignette to be used during qualitative interviews describing a scenario influenced by the social norms
Semi-structured discussions: using a discussion guide, we capture participant reactions to the vignette. The discussion explores the different aspects of the SNAP framework for these social norms, including any changes participants have observed and how the project may have contributed to these.
Data analysis: qualitative data is analysed thematically, complemented by any relevant quantitative data.
Given how complex the issue of social norms change is, the study can provide only an indication of norm change. The qualitative approach also means that results are not generalisable to the wider population. Sometimes, given the intervention’s particular design and context, it is necessary to deviate slightly from these 4 steps.
The data we use
The data we collect to support the evaluation depends on the design of the intervention and where possible includes a mix of qualitative and quantitative insights. Examples include:
Analysis of routine service and monitoring data: used to understand participation in the different activities, the number and profile of referrals resulting from activities, redemption of the referrals and uptake of services in the areas where activities took place.
Qualitative discussions with participants: In-depth qualitative discussions with a range of participant types involved in the activities to explore perceptions of the social norms being addressed.
Observation of activities: structured observations of the activities to look at the content and tone of discussions; themes and information discussed (topics, accuracy of information); engagement of participants.
For examples of analyses completed of social norms interventions, please refer to the Social Norms Library.
Social Norms Jargon Buster
Social norms language can be confusing! Use this page to get a quick refresher on the key definitions.
Social norms
Social norms
The perceived informal, mostly unwritten, rules that define acceptable and appropriate actions within a given group or community.
Empirical expectations
Empirical expectations
“What I think others do” in relation to the social norm
Normative expectations
Normative expectations
“What others expect me to do”
Injunctive norms
Injunctive norms
A norm you are expected to follow and expects others to follow
Descriptive norms
Descriptive norms
What you think others are doing
Pluralistic ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance
A wrong perception of what others think/do; when people mistakenly believe that everyone else holds a different opinion than their own.
Sanctions
Sanctions
How others react if people do not conform to the norm – the consequences of going against the norm.
Reference group
Reference group
The people who shape/influence the norm
Exceptions
Exceptions
Under what situations it is acceptable to break the norm
Patriarchy
Patriarchy
The social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. Men hold more decision-making power than women.
Gender norms
Gender norms
A specific set of social norms that relate to relations between genders.
Positive deviant
Positive deviant
A person/group that goes against a social norm that we see as negative for our mission. These can be leveraged to achieve change.
Vignette
Vignette
Short stories about imaginary characters in specific contexts, with questions that invite participants to respond to the story in a structured way. You can use them to gather insights or to evaluate changes you are seeing following an activity.
Attitudes
Attitudes
What an individual thinks and feels about a behaviour or practice. While social norms are socially motivated (= linked to one’s perception of what others do or expect), attitudes are individually motivated, and focus on individual beliefs. Attitudes can be aligned to norms, but they can also be in opposition to them. The strength of the norm will determine to what extent a person will engage in a practice that is not aligned to their attitude. Attitudes can influence whether a person conforms to a norm or not; however, they are not in and of themselves norms.
Example: Attitude: “I think that girls should get married shortly after reaching puberty.” Linked norm: “I think that most girls in my community get married shortly after reaching puberty.”