(Click on the image for Marshall Allen and Meg Marco's ProPublica report)
- If we’re surrounded by people who behave a certain way, she said, we are more likely to behave the same way.
- A well-known historical example of people being directed by social norms is smoking, Robinson said. For decades the societal norm said smoking was cool, even after it was known to kill people. That contributed to a lot of people smoking, willing to take the risk. Then the norm flipped and smoking became uncool, and fewer people smoked. “We take a lot of cues from our environment,” Robinson said. “If I see a lot of people wearing a mask, I wear a mask.”
If you are surrounded by people who are speeding - do you speed?