4 - Social Incentives for Health Behaviours

Summary

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the role of social incentives, specifically how changes in the social environment such as esteem, identity, cultural social norms, and social reference points affect individuals' behaviours. We will look into the role of envy and guilt as behavioural motivators, as well as the role of social norms as external signals and constraints on people's behaviours. Human interaction produces norms and social divisions, which create disutility or utility (oppositional or transgressive norms). Social norms are informal rules that govern behaviour in society and include shared social values, beliefs, attitudes, and/or behaviours. Social incentives are defined as "extraneous non-monetary stimuli" that influence an individual's perceived marginal benefit or cost of effort. Social incentives operate through social norms, social image, herd or social multiplier effects, narratives and can be strengthened through praise, attention, esteem, sense of belonging, feelings of meaning and loyalty. Stigma and status both are part of what we can define more widely as ‘esteem’, and can be both a positive or negative, and influence behaviour very much like a price in a market.