Descriptive social norms are the rules that most people actually act on. The study of descriptive social norm information is important for intervention of environmental decision making. In this paper we analyse intervention of descriptive social norm information on environmental decision making and discuss its limitation in terms of research validity, environmental behavior category, and culture difference. Using decision making behavior, we explore the descriptive social norm information influence on Chinese environmental decision making and intervention mechanism through two experiments. In experiment 1, Chinese participants are exposed to two groups of descriptive and injunctive norms about environmental decision making under light scenario and recycle bag scenario. Result reveals that participants are more likely to cooperate when presented with descriptive social norm information. Experiment 2 replicates this effect on high-cost environmental behavior, and shows that the intervention mechanism is based on the perspective of information attribution. Information reliability plays a mediator role in the relationship between descriptive norm information and environmental behavior. For future research, we discuss bidirectional associations between descriptive and injunctive norms based on Chinese environmental background and boundary conditions. The paper is expected to provide a converging evidence to shed light on the environmental decision making research in intervention science, as well as provide theoretical and methodological support for formulating regulations, policies and propaganda relating to environmental decision making.

descriptive social norm information  /  environmental decision making  /  information credibility