Social Norms and Sustainable Behavior: A Conceptual Model Integrating Culture, Self-Construal, and Awareness

The persistent gap between consumers’ pro-environmental attitudes and their sustainable behavior continues to challenge both scholars and practitioners. While social norms are often viewed as a lever for encouraging sustainable behavior, empirical results remain inconsistent. This paper develops a conceptual model of sustainable behavior that integrates insights from prior research on social norms, culture, and self-construal. Specifically, the paper links social norms, self-construal, macro-culture, and environmental awareness to explain their combined influence on sustainable behavior. Drawing from social norms theory, self-construal theory, cross-cultural psychology, and environmental psychology, the model proposes that appeals combining specific types of norms (injunctive vs. descriptive) with targeted self-construal activation (independent vs. interdependent) can strengthen purchase intentions, moderated by cultural context and environmental awareness. Eight testable propositions that distinguish established effects from novel extensions are advanced, thereby clarifying boundary conditions and guiding future empirical testing. By synthesizing insights from fragmented literature, the framework positions social norms as the central explanatory construct and provides practical guidance for designing culturally attuned, norm-based sustainability communications.