Intimate partner violence help-seeking norms: scale reliability and cross-sectional multilevel associations with intimate partner violence among youth in Nairobi, Kenya
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms related to IPV help-seeking—particularly those governing whether it is acceptable for women to disclose violence or seek formal or informal support—operate at the community level and have a stronger influence on IPV risk than individual attitudes. The discussion highlights that norms discouraging help-seeking (e.g., beliefs that reporting violence brings […]
Misperception of Norms About Intimate Partner Violence as a Driver of Personal IPV Attitudes and Perpetration: A Population-Based Study of Men in Rural Uganda
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Misperceptions of social norms—specifically overestimating the extent to which other men endorse and perpetrate intimate partner violence (IPV)—play a critical role in sustaining harmful attitudes and behaviors. The discussion highlights that many men believe IPV is more socially accepted and more commonly practiced than it actually is, creating a false consensus […]
Association of fertility-related attitudes and norms among adolescent wives, husbands, and mothers-in-law with wives’ fertility desires in rural Niger
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms—particularly descriptive norms (what others do) and injunctive norms (what others approve)—play a more powerful role than individual attitudes in shaping adolescent wives’ fertility desires in rural Niger. The discussion highlights that pronatalist norms, reinforced through expectations about birth spacing and social sanctions for delaying pregnancy, constrain women’s reproductive autonomy […]
HIV Testing Uptake in a Sexual and Reproductive Health Service for Youth and Impact on Population-Level Prevalence of Undiagnosed HIV in Zimbabwe.
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms—particularly those related to gender, sexual behavior, and violence—operate as important community-level determinants of HIV outcomes among youth, influencing both access to testing and the likelihood of remaining undiagnosed. The discussion highlights that harmful norms, including stigma around HIV and sexual activity and norms tolerating violence against women, can discourage […]
Disability and Bullying Victimization Among Adolescents in Nepal: The Influence of Community Gender Norms
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Community gender norms—particularly those reinforcing gender inequality, violence acceptability, and rigid gender roles—shape adolescents’ vulnerability to bullying by influencing how “difference” (such as disability) is perceived and sanctioned. The discussion highlights that bullying operates as a mechanism for enforcing social norms, where adolescents with disabilities are seen as deviating from dominant […]
Measurement of social norms for entertainment-education
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms are central to how entertainment-education (EE) programs influence behavior, but their measurement requires nuanced, multidimensional tools. This study demonstrates that descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and outcome expectations can be empirically distinguished and measured with moderate reliability, highlighting that norms are shaped by reference groups and perceived social rewards or […]
Measuring social norms related to child marriage among married women and men in Niger
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms surrounding child marriage in Niger are deeply rooted in collective beliefs about protecting girls from social and economic risks, particularly related to sexuality, reputation, and poverty. The discussion highlights that both descriptive norms (what others do) and injunctive norms (what others approve) reinforce early marriage, often justified as protective. […]
Multigenerational attitudes to gender norms on intimate partner violence and the sexual and reproductive health of young people in Nigeria
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms around intimate partner violence (IPV) appear to be strongly entrenched and transmitted across generations, with little variation in attitudes, suggesting persistent normalization of harmful beliefs. In contrast, norms related to sexuality and reproductive health are more dynamic, with younger generations showing more egalitarian attitudes, likely due to increased access […]
Psychosocial determinants of contraceptive desire and use among sexually-active adolescent girls in Kenya and Nigeria: implications for girl-centered contraceptive programs
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms—particularly descriptive norms around contraceptive acceptability—play a meaningful role in shaping adolescent girls’ desire for and use of contraception, but operate alongside individual psychosocial factors such as knowledge, perceived relevance, and self-efficacy. Norms that valorize early childbearing and fertility within marriage can suppress contraceptive demand, while normalization of contraceptive use […]
Generational trends in education and marriage norms in rural India: evidence from the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Social norms around education and marriage in rural India are shifting unevenly across generations: while education norms have changed substantially, marriage norms remain more resistant. Adolescents express aspirations for greater autonomy and later marriage for their children, but entrenched gender norms, intergenerational power dynamics, and the influence of senior household members […]