Understanding social norms nudging in interventions to redress violence against children: A literature review

Dr. Manion used research funds to study the current state of knowledge regarding the use of social norm nudging in designing interventions to redress violence against children.

Social norms or “behaviour shapers” (Davis et al., 2006) represent a growing area of social science inquiry. There are various ways to understand how to nudge behaviour. Social norm nudging, defined as an “aspect of choice architecture that alters an individual’s behavior in a predictable way” (Bicchieri & Dimant, 2019), has been applied to various situations, but its use in interventions that seek to redress violence against children is less understood. This desk-based literature review seeks to collate relevant studies that directly and indirectly shed light on how social norm nudging can be used to disrupt violence against children.