The Role of Social Norms

Extracted 29JUL2011 from http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/node/5783?cid=EXT_TWBN_D_EXT

If development is about change, then innovations and solutions leading to change are about people being willing to change their behaviours. Changing behaviours does not happen in a vacuum. A full behavioural change approach can only succeed when an individual is on a deserted island. Otherwise, any individual is embedded in a web of relations of different nature (e.g. affections, power, work, etc.) that will affect his/her decisions. This individual knows that any change in behaviour will affect others and will be affected by others.