Désalignement entre valeurs sociétales et comportements : 
les rôles de la planification et des valeurs personnelles dans l’usage des normes injonctives pour inciter le vote

Among the most tenacious social problems of our time, many share a surprising contradiction: individuals are not acting in accordance with the most fundamental values of their society. In Canada, low voter turnout is an example of such a contradiction. In every federal election, 30% to 40% of the population fails to vote, undermining the value of voting and of democracy. In order to maintain the fundamental values of society, it is urgent to develop interventions that will encourage citizens to honor them. This thesis focuses on injunctive norms to realign behavior with societal values. Injunctive norms are the values advocated by the majority of individuals in a group. In general, members of a group are motivated to conform to these norms, since by adopting the behaviors most favored by their group, they obtain the assurance that their behaviors will be perceived favorably and that they will be accepted by their group. Recognized as an influential force on behavior, injunctive norms have been used in interventions to change behavior. These interventions use different media outlets to put forward an injunctive norm. They are based on the idea that by making an injunctive norm salient, individuals will conform to it. However, research has revealed that the effectiveness of these interventions was mixed. While some research confirms that injunctive norms influence behavior, others indicate that they either have no effect or even a negative effect. To identify the individuals who would be influenced to follow these interventions, we studied the psychological processes underlying the influence of injunctive norms on voting behavior. Five studies were conducted in four different elections, three in Canada (municipal, provincial and federal) and one in the United States (presidential). Our hypothesis was that the habit of voting would influence the relationship between injunctive-norm interventions and voting behavior. In fact, individuals with habits have cognitive processes that push them to maintain their usual behavior. As these cognitive processes encourage them to cling to their habits, they should thus be impervious to the influence of injunctive norms in their environment. In this research, we study one cognitive process that can distinguish individuals with voting habits from others who do not: the cognitive process of planning. iv The results show that the individuals with few plans to vote, those not in the habit of voting, were influenced by injunctive-norm interventions that encourage voting. On the other hand, for those who had strong plans to vote, those in the habit of voting, no effect of the injunctive norm could be noted on their behavior. In addition, we demonstrate that planning has an impact on one of the mechanisms (personal values) by which injunctive norms influence behavior. Several researchers explain that injunctive norms influence behavior because individuals integrate them into their personal values in order to feel that they are part of the group. Thus, we have demonstrated that individuals with few plans to vote are influenced by injunctive norms because they attribute more personal value to voting.

Keyphrases: normes descriptives, Social norms, injunctive norms, descriptive norms, voting behavior, habits, planning, personal values