Zhuang Jie, Carey Peyton
Department of Communication Studies, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
Risk Anal. 2025 Jan;45(1):240-252. doi: 10.1111/risa.16112. Epub 2024 Jul 19.
Social norms are often considered as behavioral guidelines to mitigate health and environmental risks. However, our understanding of the magnitude of their impact on risk-mitigating behaviors and how perceptions of risks affect the magnitude remains limited. Given the increasing importance of understanding factors influencing behavioral responses to health and environmental risks, this research examines whether the relationship between social norms and behavioral intention to mitigate health and environmental risks is a function of (1) risk perceptions and (2) uncertainty about risk perceptions. A cross-sectional survey involving a national sample (N = 803) across three health and environmental risks (i.e., infectious diseases, climate change, and water shortage) is conducted. The results reveal a three-way interaction between descriptive norms, uncertainty about susceptibility, and uncertainty about severity on behavioral intention to mitigate the risk. Individuals exhibit the strongest intention to engage in risk-mitigating behaviors when they perceive prevailing social norms and are uncertain about their susceptibility to the risk and the severity of the risk. Moreover, injunctive norms interact with uncertainty about susceptibility to influence behavioral intention, such that the more uncertain individuals feel about their vulnerability to a risk, the stronger the impact of injunctive norms is on behavioral intention. Neither descriptive nor injunctive norms interact with perceived risks to influence behavioral intention. This study contributes valuable insights into the interplay between social norms, uncertainty about perceived risk, and behavioral intention, and offers valuable theoretical and practical implications.
社会规范通常被视为减轻健康和环境风险的行为准则。然而，我们对其对风险减轻行为的影响程度以及风险认知如何影响这一程度的理解仍然有限。鉴于理解影响对健康和环境风险行为反应的因素的重要性日益增加，本研究考察了社会规范与减轻健康和环境风险的行为意图之间的关系是否是以下两个因素的函数：（1）风险认知；（2）风险认知的不确定性。我们进行了一项横断面调查，涉及全国样本（N = 803），涵盖三种健康和环境风险（即传染病、气候变化和水资源短缺）。结果揭示了描述性规范、易感性不确定性和严重性不确定性对减轻风险行为意图的三方交互作用。当个体感知到普遍的社会规范，并且对自身对风险的易感性和风险的严重性不确定时，他们表现出最强烈的参与风险减轻行为的意图。此外，指令性规范与易感性不确定性相互作用以影响行为意图，即个体对自身面临风险的脆弱性感觉越不确定，指令性规范对行为意图的影响就越强。描述性规范和指令性规范均未与感知到的风险相互作用以影响行为意图。本研究为社会规范、感知风险的不确定性和行为意图之间的相互作用提供了有价值的见解，并具有重要的理论和实践意义。
