Social proof, social licensing, and (how) should we highlight good practice?
Why does highlighting positive behaviors sometimes inspire others to similar actions, and other times provoke them to do the exact opposite?
Lasarov et al. (2022) investigate that question in the context of sustainable consumption. They remind us that showcasing the desired behavior as something many people already do is quite common, for example with hotels telling us how large a percentage of visitors is reusing their towels rather than getting fresh ones every day, or charities how many others have donated, both with the intention that we also reuse towels or donate. But this strategy apparently backfires sometimes.
Lasarov et al. (2022) find that sustainable behavior of others which communicates descriptive social norms explicitly or implicitly leads to the desired effect of motivating observers to do the same thing only when observers perceive their own past actions as less sustainable than what is being suggested. This is explained by the concept of “social proof”, people like to conform with the crowd, and this strategy of showcasing wanted behaviors seems to work well for topics like reducing waste or recycling.
When participants perceive themselves as already pretty sustainable, however, seeing positive examples of others’ behavior seems to imply permission to do the opposite. This is explained by “social licensing”, when people interpret others’ good behavior as being given permission to not behave as well themselves, since the behavior they observe is taken as evidence of sufficient progress towards their sustainability goal already, so that they can now direct their attention elsewhere. So this is the case where highlighting desired behavior backfires!
The same can even happen within people: “Moral licensing, also known as self-licensing, occurs when previous virtuous or moral behaviors make individuals feel entitled to act in a way they would not permit themselves otherwise“, according to Marcos (2025). They explain that this is less likely to occur when people are focused on their commitment to a cause rather than results of concrete actions. So if we wanted people to do good and continue doing good, one way might be to strengthen their self-image as someone who does things aligned with their values.
I am thinking about this in the context of organizational development and teaching innovation. Should we highlight all the good practice examples happening everywhere? On the one hand, we want to celebrate all efforts, even the small ones, but what if that backfires and demotivates people who have put in a lot more effort already? I think I have seen exactly that happening, actually. So assuming that we can transfer the mechanisms from sustainable consumption to teaching for sustainability, we would need to be really careful with what we highlight in what context so we are motivating beginners but avoid demotivating the front runners. And we would need to make sure that we focus on long-term commitment, on the process (remember “the process is the point”?), not on singular achievements, and on strengthening peoples’ identity as someone who continuously works on improving their stuff.
A really interesting point was brought up by Hannah during today’s Transformation Thursday lunch (the space that Terese and I create for teachers interested in the initiative “Teaching for Sustainability” to meet informally and to talk about teaching sustainability in the widest sense) was that we should try to not talk about “good practice examples” when we want people to share teaching activities they are doing for others to be inspired and build on, because that hangs the bar very (and unnecessarily) high. Instead, we should try to create a culture of “here is where I am at right now — please feel free to use, and improve, and share back, and then I do the next round of improvements” (not an actual quote, but the general idea), which I think is a very good point that I wish I had thought of with myself! And this also fits very well with a process (and community) focus over a product focus, so we will definitely explore this further!
Marcos, A. (2025). Moral Licensing. In Vocabulary for Sustainable Consumption and Lifestyles (pp. 113-117). Routledge.
Lasarov, W., Mai, R., & Hoffmann, S. (2022). The backfire effect of sustainable social cues. New evidence on social moral licensing. Ecological Economics, 195, 107376.
Featured image and the one below from when I was in Cyprus. How I wish I had stayed there!
