A BIBLIOMETRIC RESEARCH ON THE CONCEPT OF NORMATIVE SOCIAL IMPACT

Abstract

The rapidly increasing interest of scientists in different disciplines in social norms provides perspectives on what constitutes social norms and how basic concepts are operationalized. The aims of this article are (a) to provide a review of the rapidly evolving literature on social norms and to review theories that explain how norms affect behavior, and (b) to offer suggestions for future research in this area. In the study, 2,606 articles related to the concept of Normative Social Impact in the SCI, SSCI and ESCI citation indexes between 1985-2022 were analyzed bibliometrically in the Web of Science database using VOSviewer software. The aim of the study is mainly to evaluate the studies made with the concept of normative social impact and to provide foresight for future studies. In this context, in order to evaluate the publications in the study, the changes and developments in the field, the trends in the subject headings, the countries and institutions that publish are discussed. It is seen that the keywords frequently used in the field of normative social influence are "social norms", "social influence", "norm", "descriptive norms". It is observed that studies are carried out in the field of psychology, sociology and communication. It is recommended that they conduct empirical and conceptual studies on the reasons for the differences in the number of studies and their level of interest in the field.