"Injunctive norms refer to what most people think to be appropriate or inappropriate behaviors (what is socially approved or disapproved). The current study examined the mechanisms underlying the influence of injunctive norms in a cross-cultural context. Specifically, how perceived injunctive norms (PIN) influenced the behavioral intentions of preventing food waste among participants from the U.S. and China, and how cultural tightness-looseness (CTL) influenced individuals' susceptibility to normative impact. A 5 (injunctive norms: control without message vs. control with message only vs. weak disapproval vs. strong disapproval vs. strong disapproval with social sanctions) × 2 (country: U.S. vs. mainland China) between-subject experiment was conducted among two nationally representative samples, with a total of 1049 participants from both countries. The results showed that injunctive normative message inductions had mediated effects on behavioral intentions to prevent food waste. High-context/low-context (HC/LC) cultural tendency moderated the relationship between norm message types and PIN, such that explicit messaging on social sanctions increased perceived salience of injunctive norms only among those with a lower-context tendency. A moderation effect of CTL on the PIN-behavioral intentions relationship was found in the Chinese sample, such that individuals who perceived their culture as tighter were more susceptible to the injunctive normative influence."--Page ii.
Read
