Social norms: More details, please

The words we use matter. The concept of a social norm exists in many social and behavioral science disciplines and research traditions (1). Because the general term “social norm” is a hypernym, an explicit definition is crucial to discussions of its place and usefulness in solving complex social–environmental issues (cf. ref. 2). In their discussion of incentives, Lubchenco et al. (3) suggest that social norms are a type of behavioral incentive reflected in “both reputation and self-image of individual actors.” However, no formal definition of social norm is provided. The authors state that a social norm includes, “reputation-driven and personally motivated norms” and reference … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: wallenk3{at}gmail.com. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1