Penn SoNG

This research project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, builds on the findings of the first wave of the Penn Social Norms Group (Penn SoNG) open defecation research project. During April through June of 2018, the Penn Social Norms Group (Penn SoNG) conducted focus groups together with a second wave of survey data collection to understand the social determinants of open defecation as well as surrounding collective practices in India.

We also included a complementary qualitative research component to assess relevant groups’ opinions, experiences, and challenges related to the collective practices we are studying. With these combined qualitative and quantitative data we now finally have the capacity to link social norms and social network data for the first time, allowing us to comprehensively analyze collective behaviors in the context of the networks in which they are embedded.

PennSoNG Member Raj Patel explains the importance of measuring institutionalized corruption before testing as social norms to see what factors drive behavioral patterns. He talks about how surveying social norms can expose assumptions among individuals that certain behaviors are widely accepted, whereas in reality acceptance is low. Challenging these false beliefs can hugely improve the impact of collective action in changing behavior.

Raj also outlines how societal change can happen quickly (within a single generation) because enough people’s values change at once or there is a realization that a majority within society feel the same way about certain behaviors. LINK TO THE VIDEO from Chatham House.

We are excited to begin a new research project in the spring investigating the relationship between perceptions of inequality and perceptions of freedom. Our main hypothesis is that perceptions of freedom and autonomy shape perceptions of inequality, and vice versa. As people perceive themselves and others as having less autonomy/freedom – they also perceive greater inequality, especially inequality of opportunity.

Conversely, when people perceive themselves as having greater freedom, they also perceive less inequality and enhanced opportunity. A corollary of this hypothesis is that changes in perceived inequality over time affect people’s perception of autonomy such that perceptions of increasing inequality will further decrease perceptions of autonomy/freedom. Does perceiving an “inequality trajectory” affect our sense of autonomy/freedom? How much?

Penn SoNG members Sam Gant and Rachel Sander recently returned to Philadelphia from a three-week trip to Mali.  They are collaborating with UNICEF to research the social expectations and reference networks that maintain child marriage and malnutrition.

In February 2019, a SoNG-designed survey will be deployed to 6,000 respondents in two regions of the country.  Results of this survey will inform UNICEF’s national-level strategy for communications and collective behavioral change.  Final results are anticipated in June 2019.