Brief 05: Norms and Harassment in a Social Network

  1. Prescriptive and descriptive norm change. Students with more ties to referent students were found to have significant improvements in their perceptions of collective norms regarding harassment.
  2. Changes in individual beliefs, experiences, and attitudes. Referents were not found to influence students’ personal beliefs about harassment or their attitudes toward the anti-harassment intervention. Students with more ties to referents were found to have less personal trouble with harassment.
  3. Behavioral changes. There was a significant decrease in harassment behavior and increase in anti-harassment behavior accompanied with improvements in perceptions of collective norms about harassment among students with more ties to intervention social referents.
  4. Effects of the two types of social referents. Widely Known & Clique Leaders Clique leaders significantly influenced perceptions of their close friends’ norms more than the widely-known referents did. Students with more ties to clique leaders were significantly more likely than students with ties to widely known students to defend peers against harassment. Students with greater ties to widely known referents were significantly more likely to purchase anti-harassment wristbands.