||_OD is okay if you are going with friends_|<br>_OD is okay if you are going with friends_|
|---|---|---|
||_OD is okay if you need to get some exercise_|<br>_OD is okay if you need to get some exercise_|
||_OD is okay if no one sees you_|<br>_OD is okay if no one sees you_|
||_Having a latrine next to the house makes the_|<br>_Having a latrine next to the house makes_|
||_house impure?_|_the house impure?_|

<mark>Because social norms are driven by both empirical and normative expectations of what others in one’s social group do and believe, it is important to identify the relevant social network for the population in question when measuring norms (Mackie et al., 2015). This can be challenging. For example, when immigrants living in multicultural societies talk about others, their refence group of people whose expectations matter may include immigrants from the same country as well as communities in their “home‐country” (in addition to, possibly, other immigrants and even communities in the host‐country). Identifying these informal networks is thus essential to understand who the target group is whose expectations matter when it comes to behavior supported by a social norm. In the context of rural India, where caste distinctions can often determine whom individuals interact with on a daily basis and where they live, identifying the right social network can be very important. In addition to measuring social norms, our survey also includes a brief social network mapping module to understand who the “others” for our respondents might be.</mark> <mark>Social desirability bias—the tendency of respondents to answer questions in a way that is “appropriate” or “correct”, rather than a true reflection of their beliefs—can be an issue in measuring sensitive beliefs. Our survey instrument utilizes two approaches to overcome social desirability bias and elicit accurate responses</mark> — <mark>incentivizing survey responses about empirical and normative expectations</mark><sup>3</sup> <mark>, and posing vignettes, in addition to straightforward questions about one’s own beliefs or behavior, where respondents are asked indirectly about their preferences through short stories about hypothetical situations (very similar to their own), and asked what the fictitious character would do in that situation.</mark> <mark>While there is no standard framework to measure cultural schema or mental models, we rely on two types of measurements for this. The first are the set of normative and empirical questions that are reflective of one’s experiences in relation to their environment with regards to utilization and importance of latrines. The second is through analysis of free‐form narrative responses. These implicitly rely on people’s own concepts and associations to interpret the world around them (Crossley, 2002; Bruner, 1990). Narrative responses can evoke the mental models that organize principles for choice and action (Sarbin, 1986).</mark>

# **<mark>Data</mark>**

<mark>Data for this study come from two rounds of survey data—baseline and endline—which were preceded by a qualitative diagnostic round comprised of focus group discussions with two groups of latrine owners—users and non‐users—split by gender. Because the objective of this study was to examine how social norms and cultural schema influence latrine usage among rural latrine owners, we sampled a cluster of villages where latrine penetration was higher than average (based on data from SaniFOAM‐UP, 2016). Our survey sample came from five villages in the Ghazipur District of Uttar Pradesh—Adelabad, Gauspur, Jhakrauli, Keshopur, and Saleempur. Latrine penetration rates in the sample villages ranged from 31.5%</mark>

> 3 Prior to asking questions about social empirical and social normative expectations, respondents were told that the three people who give the most accurate answers (i.e. closest to the actual number of people engaging in the behavior) will receive a prize of Rs. 500 a few weeks after the survey is completed.

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