---
title: "Social norms research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “social norms” appeared in 1,100 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (564), management (126) and health economics and policy (110)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-norms
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-norms.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “social norms” appeared in 1,100 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (564), management (126) and health economics and policy (110). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “social norms”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/6.md)

Research on “social norms” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “social norms” appeared in 1,100 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (564), management (126) and health economics and policy (110).
- 141 of them were published in 2025, against 85 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (10), University of Milan (7) and Utrecht University (7).
- The journals publishing most of them were Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (34), Social Science & Medicine (28) and Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (23).
- The most-cited of them is “Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence” (Journal of Financial Economics, 2018), with 2,547 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 44 | 33 | 51 | 54 | 57 | 68 | 59 | 67 | 73 | 58 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 11 | 5 | 15 | 8 | 8 | 18 | 10 | 21 | 19 | 11 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 7 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 16 | 11 | 20 | 7 | 9 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 8 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 7 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 4 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 3 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 8 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 1 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 6 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 85 | 69 | 106 | 94 | 112 | 133 | 110 | 136 | 141 | 114 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-economic-behavior-organization.md) | 34 |
| 2 | [Social Science & Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/social-science-medicine.md) | 28 |
| 3 | [Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-economics.md) | 23 |
| 4 | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 16 |
| 5 | [European Economic Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-economic-review.md) | 15 |
| 6 | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 13 |
| 7 | [Cleaner and Responsible Consumption](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/cleaner-and-responsible-consumption.md) | 13 |
| 8 | [Journal of Business Ethics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-ethics.md) | 11 |
| 9 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 9 |
| 10 | [Journal of Economic Psychology](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-economic-psychology.md) | 8 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 10 |
| 2 | University of Milan | 7 |
| 3 | [Utrecht University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/utrecht-university.md) | 7 |
| 4 | [World Bank](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/world-bank.md) | 7 |
| 5 | [Erasmus University Rotterdam](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/erasmus-university-rotterdam.md) | 6 |
| 6 | [IZA - Institute of Labor Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/iza-institute-of-labor-economics.md) | 6 |
| 7 | Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics | 6 |
| 8 | [Monash University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/monash-university.md) | 6 |
| 9 | Universidad Carlos III de Madrid | 6 |
| 10 | [University of Bologna](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-bologna.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 106 |
| 2 | Germany | 77 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 68 |
| 4 | China | 63 |
| 5 | Italy | 55 |
| 6 | France | 41 |
| 7 | Netherlands | 39 |
| 8 | Australia | 34 |
| 9 | Spain | 30 |
| 10 | India | 19 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | descriptive norms | 32 |
| 2 | injunctive norms | 28 |
| 3 | pro-environmental behavior | 25 |
| 4 | personal norms | 24 |
| 5 | [theory of planned behavior](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/theory-of-planned-behavior.md) | 24 |
| 6 | [gender differences](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/gender-differences.md) | 20 |
| 7 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 17 |
| 8 | cooperation | 17 |
| 9 | perceived behavioral control | 16 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,547 | 26.0 | [Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.08.013) | [Journal of Financial Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-financial-economics.md) | 2018-09-04 | Alexander Dyck, Karl V. Lins, Lukas Roth et al. |
| 2 | 958 | 8.4 | [Social Norms and Pro-environmental Behavior: A Review of the Evidence](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.04.017) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2017-05-04 | Katherine Farrow, Gilles Grolleau, Lisette Ibanez |
| 3 | 763 | 6.5 | [The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.02.003) | [Journal of Public Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-public-economics.md) | 2017-02-13 | Michael Hallsworth, John A. List, Robert Metcalfe et al. |
| 4 | 505 | 4.7 | [Understanding entrepreneurial intentions: A developed integrated structural model approach](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.10.045) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2017-10-31 | Kourosh Esfandiar, Mohammad Sharifi-Tehrani, Stephen Pratt et al. |
| 5 | 454 | 7.1 | [Social Norms as a Barrier to Women’s Employment in Developing Countries](https://doi.org/10.1057/s41308-021-00140-w) | [IMF Economic Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/imf-economic-review.md) | 2021-07-05 | Seema Jayachandran |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “social norms”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-norms

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-social-norms,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “social norms”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-norms}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).