Descriptive norms, prescriptive norms, and social control: An intercultural comparison of people's reactions to uncivil behaviors

Social control is the generic term for any reaction through which a bystander communicates to the “perpetrator” of a norm transgression that his/her action is socially unacceptable. In order to understand the characteristics of behaviors that lead to social control reactions in public settings, we conducted a study with respondents from eight different countries. Respondents were presented with a description of 46 uncivil behaviors and indicated for each behavior (a) its prescriptive normativity (how deviant it was), (b) its descriptive normativity (how frequent it was), and (c) how likely it was that they would express their disapproval to the “perpetrator.” Results showed that in all eight countries, prescriptive normativity was the primary determinant of respondents' social control reactions. In addition, respondents from collectivistic cultures reported that they would exert more social control than respondents from individualistic cultures. The findings suggest that people will exert social control when they feel personally implicated by the uncivil behavior. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.