Don't tell me what I should do, but what others do: The influence of descriptive and injunctive peer norms on fruit consumption in adolescents

Abstract

Health-promoting injunctive norms not only had no positive effects on fruit intake but actually caused a decrease in fruit intake intentions, indicating that injunctive norms may be vulnerable to reactance. A health-promoting descriptive norm was found to positively affect fruit intake in adolescents. No effect on fruit intake intention was found. Results show that simple single-sentence norm messages hold the potential to substantially influence health behaviour.