literature reviews definition in sociology

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What is a Literature Review?

The scholarly conversation.

A literature review provides an overview of previous research on a topic that critically evaluates, classifies, and compares what has already been published on a particular topic. It allows the author to synthesize and place into context the research and scholarly literature relevant to the topic. It helps map the different approaches to a given question and reveals patterns. It forms the foundation for the author’s subsequent research and justifies the significance of the new investigation.

A literature review can be a short introductory section of a research article or a report or policy paper that focuses on recent research. Or, in the case of dissertations, theses, and review articles, it can be an extensive review of all relevant research.

• The format is usually a bibliographic essay; sources are briefly cited within the body of the essay, with full bibliographic citations at the end.
• The introduction should define the topic and set the context for the literature review. It will include the author's perspective or point of view on the topic, how they have defined the scope of the topic (including what's not included), and how the review will be organized. It can point out overall trends, conflicts in methodology or conclusions, and gaps in the research.
• In the body of the review, the author should organize the research into major topics and subtopics. These groupings may be by subject, (e.g., globalization of clothing manufacturing), type of research (e.g., case studies), methodology (e.g., qualitative), genre, chronology, or other common characteristics. Within these groups, the author can then discuss the merits of each article and analyze and compare the importance of each article to similar ones.
• The conclusion will summarize the main findings, make clear how this review of the literature supports (or not) the research to follow, and may point the direction for further research.
• The list of references will include full citations for all of the items mentioned in the literature review.

Key Questions for a Literature Review

A literature review should try to answer questions such as

• Who are the key researchers on this topic?
• What has been the focus of the research efforts so far and what is the current status?
• How have certain studies built on prior studies? Where are the connections? Are there new interpretations of the research?
• Have there been any controversies or debate about the research? Is there consensus? Are there any contradictions?
• Which areas have been identified as needing further research? Have any pathways been suggested?
• How will your topic uniquely contribute to this body of knowledge?
• Which methodologies have researchers used and which appear to be the most productive?
• What sources of information or data were identified that might be useful to you?
• How does your particular topic fit into the larger context of what has already been done?
• How has the research that has already been done help frame your current investigation ?

Examples of Literature Reviews

Example of a literature review at the beginning of an article: Forbes, C. C., Blanchard, C. M., Mummery, W. K., & Courneya, K. S. (2015, March). Prevalence and correlates of strength exercise among breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer survivors . Oncology Nursing Forum, 42(2), 118+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.sonoma.idm.oclc.org/ps/i.do?p=HRCA&sw=w&u=sonomacsu&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA422059606&asid=27e45873fddc413ac1bebbc129f7649c Example of a comprehensive review of the literature: Wilson, J. L. (2016). An exploration of bullying behaviours in nursing: a review of the literature.   British Journal Of Nursing ,  25 (6), 303-306. For additional examples, see:

Galvan, J., Galvan, M., & ProQuest. (2017). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences (Seventh ed.). [Electronic book]

Pan, M., & Lopez, M. (2008). Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches (3rd ed.). Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Pub. [ Q180.55.E9 P36 2008]

Useful Links

• Write a Literature Review (UCSC)
• Literature Reviews (Purdue)
• Literature Reviews: overview (UNC)
• Review of Literature (UW-Madison)

Evidence Matrix for Literature Reviews

The  Evidence Matrix  can help you  organize your research  before writing your lit review.  Use it to  identify patterns  and commonalities in the articles you have found--similar methodologies ?  common  theoretical frameworks ? It helps you make sure that all your major concepts covered. It also helps you see how your research fits into the context  of the overall topic.

• Evidence Matrix Special thanks to Dr. Cindy Stearns, SSU Sociology Dept, for permission to use this Matrix as an example.
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• Research Guides

Doing a Literature Review in Sociology

Introduction, early in the process, during data analysis, getting ready to write, before submitting the paper.

• Searching: Early in the Process
• Organizing: Getting Ready to Write

Top Journals & Publishers

Recommended Journals

• American Journal of Sociology Published by University of Chicago Press, available through JSTOR
• American Sociological Review Published by the American Sociological Association, available through SAGE Journals database
• Annual Review of Sociology Published by Annual Reviews, available through Brandeis subscription to the Annual Reviews website
• Social Forces Published by Oxford University Press, most recent issues (2000-present) available through Project Muse database
• Social Problems Published by Oxford University Press, available through Brandeis subscription to Oxford University Press website
• Theory & Society Published by Springer, available through Brandeis's subscription to Springer Standard Collection

Recommended Publishers

Found a good book that we don't own?  Contact  [email protected]  to request a library purchase! 

A literature review helps you figure out what scholars, what studies, and what questions your project is in conversation with. It typically happens in stages throughout the life of your project – it is not something you do once and are then finished with!

This guide explores how to think about and do a literature review at four different stages of a project. On this page, Professor Wendy Cadge suggests how to think about each step. Get specific advice on strategies for searching and organizing on the subsequent pages of this guide.

​Wendy's Process

The first time I do a literature review is when I am thinking about possible research topics and questions and want to know what people have written about these questions and what they have found. I search the topics and questions broadly aiming to get a relatively comprehensive sense of what is known about my topic and whether there is space for another study that is going to contribute meaningfully to the conversation. I am trying to figure out both who is in this conversation (what scholars specifically but also in what fields), what they are talking about, and what is known and not known according to these experts.

The goal here is to figure out whether my study will be new and relevant and whether there is a way to motivate it both empirically and theoretically for the audience I am thinking of. I need this answer to be yes in order to proceed with the process.

As I do this initial literature review I am also refining my research question, asking myself whether it makes sense, how it relates to the ways others have approached my topic, etc. Often questions are too big (they will require thousands of pages to answer) or too small (you don’t need an empirical study to answer them) so I am also trying to get my question to be the right size as I do this first review.

My search strategies are as follows   Google Scholar and Sociological Abstracts with key terms, and focus on books published by major presses and articles in well-known journals. When I get hits I sort them into groups based on what they are - materials by sociologists, by other academics, by journalists, etc. I only read things that are published (no conference papers!) and read books in the top academic presses first (Chicago, UC Berkeley, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge) and things in well-known sociology journals. (See the box to the left for links to these journals.) Depending on the topic, I may read a lot written by non-sociologists to learn more . I read almost nothing in the popular media on the first go through.

I also don’t “read” everything - I skim books and read article abstracts to get an overview. The goal is to write 5-6 double spaced pages about what is known and what my study might add. I also want to have a set of more specific search terms and author names to search later. Typically I am mostly reviewing the sociology literature to think about how to fit this into a social science frame while also separating out “primary sources” to read later. These other sources about my topic include data (like government reports, statistical information etc.), which will be analyzed later rather than used for sociological framing.

Before I start collecting data I check with various colleagues to make sure my assessment of the literature and the place of my study in it (my 5-6 page document) makes sense and is convincing (i.e., I don’t want to waste my time gathering data to answer a question that people either don’t think is interesting, has already been answered in the literature, or isn’t going to add anything new and significant to the conversation. I don’t want to be the dud at the dinner party who is saying something people already know or doesn’t have anything to say.

Themes typically emerge in the process of analyzing the data that require me to revisit what I think I know about my topic and question from the literature. This is usually the place where I am trying to figure out what my empirical and theoretical arguments are. Often I have ideas about what my theoretical hooks or arguments might be but they come from other literatures, scholars or friends working in different parts of sociology, etc. This is often where I go back to the literature (via Annual Review articles and searches) to see how people have used certain concepts and to see if those concepts might help me articulate what I am finding. I also read the key empirical articles cited in the Annual Review articles to see how what I am finding is similar to and different from what others know and how I can relate to those studies with my data.

Search strategies Google scholar and Sociological Abstracts, Annual review articles, asking people who know the discipline better than I do where to go to learn about concept x or y. At this point I’m looking for ideas as I read that will help me make and articulate whatever arguments might be supported by my data.

By the time I finish this step I have a good sense of what my findings and argument are and how they fit i nto the existing conversation / literature.

If I have done the above two steps well, I probably have an outline by now that lays out what I think my findings are and how I am going to situate them and motivate them in existing literatures. Before I start to write I read through my entire Endnote database and I put citations and notes in the outline that will help me make certain points. If I see holes or don’t feel like the outline is tight enough I do more lit review at this point to help me situate my question as tightly as possible in existing literature. While articles are written in a way that makes it look like you do the lit review, then the data collection and analysis, then articulate the findings, etc. this is actually iterative for me through the whole process.

For more information on EndNote and other citation management software like Zotero, see the Organizing section of this guide .

Search strategies The same as what’s outlined above. Part of the trick here though is knowing when to stop searching and start writing! I try to start writing before I feel like I am finished reading because I will discover as I write what is missing and will go back and fill it in.

I have friends and colleagues read my paper and give me feedback. If this is going to a journal I look at the editorial board and make sure I have engaged with the ideas of any scholars on the editorial board that are relevant as these people are likely to be reviewers . I also always fill in a lot of citations after the article is drafted so I can see it as a whole and see what is and is not needed to make the argument more compelling.

Search strategies This is when I am looking up certain people usually on the web to see if I read relevant publications or am searching for a particular article. If I know I need some citations about a certain topic to support a point, this is also when I find them. This is usually the easiest part of the process.

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• Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024 1:25 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.brandeis.edu/soclitreviews

Sociology Research Guide

• Picking a topic
• Background research and finding books
• Advanced searching in databases and Google
• Finding statistics
• Evaluating sources
• Literature Reviews

What is a Lit Review?

How to write a lit review.

• Video Introduction to Lit Reviews

Main Objectives

Examples of lit reviews, additional resources.

• SOC1: Morales (Cultural Artifact)
• SOC4: Ie (Literature Review)

What is a literature review?

• Either a complete piece of writing unto itself or a section of a larger piece of writing like a book or article
• A thorough and critical look at the information and perspectives that other experts and scholars have written about a specific topic
• A way to give historical perspective on an issue and show how other researchers have addressed a problem
• An analysis of sources based on your own perspective on the topic
• Based on the most pertinent and significant research conducted in the field, both new and old

• A descriptive list or collection of summaries of other research without synthesis or analysis
• An annotated bibliography
• A literary review (a brief, critical discussion about the merits and weaknesses of a literary work such as a play, novel or a book of poems)
• Exhaustive; the objective is not to list as many relevant books, articles, reports as possible
• To convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic
• To explain what the strengths and weaknesses of that knowledge and those ideas might be
• To learn how others have defined and measured key concepts    
• To keep the writer/reader up to date with current developments and historical trends in a particular field or discipline
• To establish context for the argument explored in the rest of a paper
• To provide evidence that may be used to support your own findings
• To demonstrate your understanding and your ability to critically evaluate research in the field
• To suggest previously unused or underused methodologies, designs, and quantitative and qualitative strategies
• To identify gaps in previous studies and flawed methodologies and/or theoretical approaches in order to avoid replication of mistakes
• To help the researcher avoid repetition of earlier research
• To suggest unexplored populations
• To determine whether past studies agree or disagree and identify strengths and weaknesses on both sides of a controversy in the literature

• Choose a topic that is interesting to you; this makes the research and writing process more enjoyable and rewarding.
• For a literature review, you'll also want to make sure that the topic you choose is one that other researchers have explored before so that you'll be able to find plenty of relevant sources to review.

• Your research doesn't need to be exhaustive. Pay careful attention to bibliographies. Focus on the most frequently cited literature about your topic and literature from the best known scholars in your field. Ask yourself: "Does this source make a significant contribution to the understanding of my topic?"
• Reading other literature reviews from your field may help you get ideas for themes to look for in your research. You can usually find some of these through the library databases by adding literature review as a keyword in your search.
• Start with the most recent publications and work backwards. This way, you ensure you have the most current information, and it becomes easier to identify the most seminal earlier sources by reviewing the material that current researchers are citing.

The organization of your lit review should be determined based on what you'd like to highlight from your research. Here are a few suggestions:

• Chronology : Discuss literature in chronological order of its writing/publication to demonstrate a change in trends over time or to detail a history of controversy in the field or of developments in the understanding of your topic.  
• Theme: Group your sources by subject or theme to show the variety of angles from which your topic has been studied. This works well if, for example, your goal is to identify an angle or subtopic that has so far been overlooked by researchers.  
• Methodology: Grouping your sources by methodology (for example, dividing the literature into qualitative vs. quantitative studies or grouping sources according to the populations studied) is useful for illustrating an overlooked population, an unused or underused methodology, or a flawed experimental technique.

• Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review.
• Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review.
• Synthesize your sources. Your goal is not to make a list of summaries of each source but to show how the sources relate to one another and to your own work.
• Make sure that your own voice and perspective remains front and center. Don't rely too heavily on summary or paraphrasing. For each source, draw a conclusion about how it relates to your own work or to the other literature on your topic.
• Be objective. When you identify a disagreement in the literature, be sure to represent both sides. Don't exclude a source simply on the basis that it does not support your own research hypothesis.
• At the end of your lit review, make suggestions for future research. What subjects, populations, methodologies, or theoretical lenses warrant further exploration? What common flaws or biases did you identify that could be corrected in future studies?

• Double check that you've correctly cited each of the sources you've used in the citation style requested by your professor (APA, MLA, etc.) and that your lit review is formatted according to the guidelines for that style.

Your literature review should:

• Be focused on and organized around your topic.
• Synthesize your research into a summary of what is and is not known about your topic.
• Identify any gaps or areas of controversy in the literature related to your topic.
• Suggest questions that require further research.
• Have your voice and perspective at the forefront rather than merely summarizing others' work.
• Cyberbullying: How Physical Intimidation Influences the Way People are Bullied
• Use of Propofol and Emergence Agitation in Children
• Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza's 'Ethics'
• Literature Review Tutorials and Samples - Wilson Library at University of La Verne
• Literature Reviews: Introduction - University Library at Georgia State
• Literature Reviews - The Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill
• Writing a Literature Review - Boston College Libraries
• Write a Literature Review - University Library at UC Santa Cruz
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Literature Reviews in Sociology

Literature reviews, literature review process.

• Keywords/ Search Terms
• Search Strategies
• Source Types & Uses
• Background & Topic Overviews
• Published Research (Article Databases)
• Grey Literature (Policies & Reports)
• Data & Statistics
• ASA Citation Style
• Research Support

Lit Review Tools

Synthesis templates.

Synthesis grids are organizational tools used to record the main concepts of your sources and can help you make connections about how your sources relate to one another.

• Source Template Basic Literature Review Source Template from Walden University Writing Center to help record the main findings and concepts from different articles.
• Sample Literature Review Grids This spreadsheet contains multiple tabs with different grid templates. Download or create your own copy to begin recording notes.

Citation Managers

There are many different citation management tools. This guide will give you information about three of them: RefWorks, Zotero, and Mendeley .

All citation managers let you:

• add citations from databases (PsycINFO; Web of Science; Academic Search Complete, etc)
• organize your citations
• add PDF files; annotate PDFs
• format citations in multiple citation styles
• format citations  in Microsoft Word to create bibliographies
• share your citations with colleagues / classmates
• Questions to Consider

The term " literature review"  refers to both your final product (part of an article or a stand-alone publication) and the process of conducting the review. 

"...one of the first steps in planning a research project is to do a literature review: that is, to trawl through all the available information sources to track down the latest knowledge, and to assess it for relevance, quality, controversy and gaps.

The review can be used to show where you have gained inspiration to develop your ideas...it should also demonstrate you have a good understanding of the current conceptual frameworks in your subject, and that you can take a stance in placing your work within these."

A literature review includes: 

• Research theory & philosophy - to establish the intellectual context(s) of research related to your topic/ research question. 
• History of developments in your subject - to trace the background to present day thinking.
• Latest research and developments in your subject - to inform and practice, to discuss the conflicting arguments, and to detect a gap in knowledge.
• Research methods - to explore practical techniques that have been used, particularly those that might be relevant to your project. 

From Walliman, Nicholas. 2018.  Research Methods : the Basics . Second edition. Abingdon, Oxon.

Transcript of this Graphic

Literature Search and review on your topic

Questions to ask: 

• What are the key sources?
• What are the key theories, concepts and ideas?
• What are the epistemological and ontological grounds for the discipline?
• What are the main questions and problems that have been addressed? 
• How is knowledge on the topic structures and organized
• What are the origins and definitions of the topic?
• What are the political standpoints?
• What are the major issues and debates about the topic?

How have approaches to these questions increased our understanding and knowledge? 

• Research Pathways
• Steps to a Successful Review
• Additional Guidance for Conducting Reviews

You will likely go through the search process a number of times, performing different searches with different keyword combinations, to address the different components of your literature review. 

What Makes a Successful Literature Review?

Here are eight steps toward completing a successful literature review.

• Search terms : Formulate appropriate search terms as the basis for your literature searches.
• Database search tools : Use database search tools to identify relevant journal articles and related materials.
• Key publications : Identify a series of key publications in your area and use these as the bases for citation reference searches.
• Web search tools : Use web search tools to identify pieces of interest, in particular grey literature, relevant to you.
• Scanning : Scan abstracts of articles, reviews of books, executive summaries of government reports, and other summaries of published work to determine if you need to read the piece in full.
• Reading : Read the pieces you have identified and make notes from them. A synthesis grid may be useful for note taking and for facilitating writing the review.
• Note, a chronological or methodological organization may align better with your research question.
• Writing the review: Write the review, based on the thematic organization, in such a way that you can construct one or more interesting research questions which you will address in your investigation.

From Byrne, D. (2017). What makes a successful literature review?.  Project Planner . 10.4135/9781526408518.

SAGE Research Methods  is a collection of resources and tools intended to assist researchers as they plan, conduct and analyze their research projects. Access these tools under Research Methods at the top of the SAGE Research Methods platform.

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The Literature Review

28 The Literature Review

A literature review is a survey of everything that has been written about a particular topic, theory, or research question. The word “literature” means “sources of information”. The literature will inform you about the research that has already been conducted on your chosen subject. This is important because we do not want to repeat research that has already been done unless there is a good reason for doing so (i.e. there has been a new development in this area or testing a theory with a new population, or even just to see if the research can be reproduced).  Literature reviews usually serve as a background for a larger work (e.g. as part of a research proposal), or it may stand on its own. Much more than a simple list of sources, an effective literature review analyzes and synthesizes information about key themes or issues.

Purpose of a literature review

The literature review involves an extensive study of research publications, books and other documents related to the defined problem.  The study is important because it advises you, as a researcher, whether the problem you identified has already been solved by other researchers.  It also advises you as to the status of the problem, techniques that have been used by other researchers to investigate the problem, and other related details.

A literature review goes beyond the search for information and includes the identification and articulation of relationships between existing literature and your field of research. The literature review enables the researcher to discover what has been already been written about a topic and to understand the relationship between the various contributions. This will enable the researcher to determine the contributions of each sources (books, article, etc.) to the topic. Literature reviews also enable the researcher to identify and (if possible) resolve contradictions, and also determine research gaps and/or unanswered questions.

Even though the nature of the literature review may vary with different types of studies, the basic purposes remain constant and could be summarized as follows:

• Provide a context for your research;
• Justify the research you are proposing;
• Ensure that your proposed research has not been carried out by another person (and if you find it has, then your literature review should specify why replication is necessary);
• Show where your proposed research fits into the existing body of knowledge;
• Enable the researcher to learn from previous theory on the subject;
• Illustrate how the subject has been studied previously;
• Highlight flaws in previous research;
• Outline gaps in previous research;
• Show how your proposed research can add to the understanding and knowledge of the field;
• Help refine, refocus, or even move the topic in a new direction

What is involved in writing a literature review?

• Research – to discover what has been written about the topic;
• Critical Appraisal – to evaluate the literature, determine the relationship between the sources and ascertain what has been done already and what still needs to be done;
• Writing – to explain what you have found

Generally speaking, it is helpful to think of the literature review as a funnel.  One starts with a broad examination of the research related to the issue, working down to look at more specific aspects of the issue, which leads to the gap or the specific issue that your research will address.

How to undertake a literature review

The first step in undertaking a literature review is to conduct a library search of academic research that has been done on your topic.  This can be done electronically, or if you are within close vicinity to a library, you can go in and use their computers to find electronic and print holdings. You can also use Google Scholar for your search.  In some cases, research conducted outside academia can serve as an important research source for your literature review. Indeed, such research can have important practical implications, as opposed to academic research which usually (although not always) tends toward theoretical applications.

However, it is important to understand who funded the research you review, in addition to the perspective and the purpose of the research.  This is becoming an issue in Canada as universities and colleges increasingly turn to industry for research funding grants (see How TransAlta used a university-sanctioned research project to lobby for the coal industry ).

As part of this first step there are a few more some things to be thinking about as you review the literature, as follows:

• Who are the various researchers who have studied this topic?  Who are the most prolific researchers/writers on this topic? Has a specific researcher or teams of researchers been identified as pioneers or leaders in this field of study?
• How have the various researchers defined key terms that are relevant to your topic? Have the definitions of any of the key terms evolved over time?
• What are the different theories that have been examined and applied to this topic? How, if at all, have the various theories applied to this topic over time evolved?
• What methodologies have been used to study this topic?  Have the methodologies evolved over time?

In addition to thinking about these questions, you should be taking notes during this process. It can be helpful to keep these notes in an Excel file.  For example, your notes should include the following information:

• If the article is empirical, write down the results of the research study in one or two sentences of your own words. e.g. “people who are between ages 18 – 35 are more likely to own a smart phone than those above or below.”  It is also a good idea to make note of the methods, the research design, the number of participants and details on the sample used in the study. Sometimes, you may even want to write down the names of the statistical procedures used to analyze the data or even some of the statistics, depending on your assignment.
• If the article is a review of previous research, look for the main points. It may be helpful to read or skim the whole article, look away, and ask yourself what you felt was the main idea.
• Write down any limitations or gaps you notice, anything that seems to contradict something you read elsewhere, or just anything that you think is important or interesting (Adjei, n.d.)

When reading through your sources, remember that you are looking for the “big picture,” not a collection of random, separate articles (an annotated bibliography).  You are also not trying to prove a point (an essay). You are looking for common themes and patterns in the research as a whole. You are also looking to see how the various pieces of research are linked, if at all.  As part of this process, you also want to identify research gaps or areas that require further research related your topic (Adjei, n.d.). In this regard, you cannot be expected to be an expert on your topic. A suggestion for finding gaps is to read the conclusion section of the academic journal articles and conference proceedings your search has uncovered.  Researchers often identify gaps in the research in their conclusion. They may even suggest areas for future research. However, remember, if a researcher suggested a gap 10 years ago, it is likely that the gap has now been addressed. To find a gap, look at the most recent research your literature review has uncovered (within 2-3 years of the current date). At this point in your search of the literature, you may realize that your research question needs to change or adapt.  This is a fairly common occurrence, as when you first develop a research question, you cannot be sure what the status of the research area is, until you undertake your review of the literature related to this topic. Finally, it is worth mentioning that it is very likely you will not include all of the resources you have read in your literature review. If you are asked to include 20 resources in your literature review, for example, expect to read approximately 30.

How to write a literature review

There are three parts to the literature review: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.  In the following paragraphs we outline what to include in each of these sections. This section concludes with a variety of resources for you to check out.

Introduction

• The introduction must identify the topic by briefly discussing the significance of the topic including a statement that outlines the conclusion to be drawn from the literature review.
• If your literature review is part of a larger work, explain the importance of the review to your research question.
• Defend the importance of the topic by giving a broad overview of the scope of the work you are reviewing. For example, if you are interested in post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in paramedics, you might provide some stats to prove how much work time is lost by those suffering from PTSD.
• Clarify whether you are looking at the entire history of the field, or just a particular period of time.
• Discuss and assess the research according to specific organizational principles (see examples below), rather than addressing each source separately. Most, if not all, paragraphs should discuss more than one source. Avoid addressing your sources alphabetically as this does not assist in developing the themes or key issues central to your review.
• Compare, contrast, and connect the various pieces of research. Much of the research you are reading should be connected.  Or you may notice various themes within the research (i.e. effects of PTSD on sick time, effects of PTSD on families of paramedics, effects of PTSD on overall paramedic wellness, etc.).  If you have undertaken a thorough review of the literature, you should start to see the bigger picture of how the research on this topic has evolved over time, who the main researchers are on this topic, how the methods and theories related to this topic have changed (if at all), over time.
• Summarize the works you are reviewing. Just as in any written assignment, use logical organization and clear transitions. Spend more time on the researchers and bodies of research that are considered most important in the field and/or that are most relevant.

Based upon your research, suggest where the research in the field will or should go next. If you are proposing your own research study, show how you will contribute to the field and fill in any gaps. The conclusion would also be a good place to defend the importance of the topic, now that you have demonstrated the current state of thinking in the field.

Other resources to help you write a literature review

In conclusion, there is a plethora of resources, both here and online, that provide information on how to write a literature review. For example, check out these three, very helpful YouTube videos prepared by a professor at the University of Maryland, in the U.S.A:

• The Literature Review, Part 1
• The Literature Review, Part 2
• The Literature Review, Part 3

Table 5.1 also provides some suggested organizational techniques, as well as instances when you might use these various techniques.  The table also provides a writing sample to demonstrate the writing technique.

And remember, most university and college libraries also have valuable information on literature reviews.  Here is the link to one such website: JIBC Literature Review information [PDF]

Acceptable sources for literature reviews

There are a few acceptable sources for literature reviews, and I will list these in order from what will be considered most acceptable to less acceptable sources for your literature review assignments, as follows:

• Peer reviewed journal articles;
• Edited academic books;
• Articles in professional journals;
• Statistical data from government websites;
• Website material from professional associations (use sparingly and carefully);

The following sections will explain and provide examples of these various sources.

Peer reviewed journal articles (papers)

A peer reviewed journal article is a paper that has been submitted to a scholarly journal, accepted, and published.  Peer review journal papers go through a rigorous, blind review process of peer review. What this means is that two to three experts in the area of research featured in the paper have reviewed and accepted the paper for publication. The names of the author(s) who are seeking to publish the research have been removed (blind review), so as to minimize any bias towards the authors of the research. Albeit, sometimes a savvy reviewer can discern who has done the research based upon previous publications, etc.  This blind review process can be long (often 12 to 18 months) that may involve many back and forth edits on the behalf of the researchers, as they work to address the edits and concerns of the peers who reviewed their paper. Often, reviewers will reject the paper for a variety of reasons, such as unclear or questionable methods, lack of contribution to the field, etc. Because peer reviewed journal articles have gone through a rigorous process of review, they are considered to be the premier source for research. Peer reviewed journal articles should serve as the foundation for your literature review.

The following website will provide more information on peer-reviewed journal articles: Evaluating Information Sources: What Is A Peer-Reviewed Article? Make sure you watch the little video on the upper left-hand side of your screen, in addition to reading the material.

Edited academic books

An edited academic book is a collection of scholarly scientific papers written by different authors. The works are original papers, not published elsewhere (Wikipedia, 2018).  The papers within the text also go through a process of review; however, the review is often not a blind review because the authors have been invited to contribute to the book. Consequently, edited academic books are fine to use for your literature review, but you also want to ensure that your literature review contains mostly peer reviewed journal papers.

Articles in professional journals.

Articles from professional journals should be used with caution, as far as it relates to a source for your literature review.  This is because articles in trade journals are not usually peer reviewed, even though they may appear as such. A good way to find out is to read the “About us” section of the professional journal.  They should state there if the papers are peer reviewed. You can also google the name of the journal and add peer reviewed to the search and you should be able to find out that way.

Statistical data from governmental websites.

Governmental websites can be excellent sources for statistical data.  For examples, Statistics Canada collects and publishes data related to the economy, society, and the environment.

Website material from professional associations

Material from other websites can also serve as a source for statistics that you may need for your literature review.  As you want to justify the value of the research you are interested in, you might make use of a professional association´s website to learn how many members they have, for example.  As a hypothetical example, you might want to demonstrate, as part of the introduction to your literature review, why more research on the topic of PTSD in police officers is important.  You could use peer reviewed journal articles to determine the prevalence of PTSD in police officers in Canada in the last ten years and then use the Ontario Police Officers´ Association website to determine the approximate number of police officers employed in the Province of Ontario over the last ten years. This might help you create an approximation of how many police officers could be suffering with PTSD in Ontario.  That number could potentially help to justify a research grand down the road. But again, this type of website-based material should be used with caution and sparingly.

Text Attributions

• This chapter has been adapted from Unit 2: Literature Review in  Research Methods by  Joseph K. Adjei. © Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License .

The Literature Review Copyright © 2019 by Valerie A. Sheppard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Review of Literature The Writing Center @ Univeristy of Wisconsin - Madison
• Tools for Preparing Literature Reviews George Washington University
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1. Introduction

Not to be confused with a book review, a  literature review  surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.

2. Components

Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:

• Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?
• Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored
• Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic
• Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature

Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:

• An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review
• Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those in support of a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative theses entirely)
• Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research

In assessing each piece, consideration should be given to:

• Provenance—What are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence (e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?
• Objectivity—Is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness—Which of the author's theses are most/least convincing?
• Value—Are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

  3. Definition and Use/Purpose

A literature review may constitute an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation, or may be a self-contained review of writings on a subject. In either case, its purpose is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration
• Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in, previous research
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
• Point the way forward for further research
• Place one's original work (in the case of theses or dissertations) in the context of existing literature

The literature review itself, however, does not present new  primary  scholarship.

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What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is an essential component of every research project. It requires “re-viewing” what credible scholars in the field have said, done, and found in order to help you:

• Identify what is currently known in your area of interest
• Establish an empirical/ theoretical/ foundation for your research
• Identify potential gaps in knowledge that you might fill
• Develop viable research questions and hypotheses
• Determine appropriate methodologies
• Decide upon the scope of your research
• Demonstrate the importance of your research to the field
• VCU Libraries Guide: How to Write a Literature Review

Helpful Tools for Literature Reviews

• Academic Phrasebank Examples of common phrases used in literature reviews and reports of research findings. The items in the Academic Phrasebank are mostly content neutral and generic in nature; in using them, therefore, you are not stealing other people’s ideas and this does not constitute plagiarism.
• How to Read a Journal Article Tips and tricks to make reading and understanding social science journal articles easier from ICPSR.

As you read, you'll encounter various ideas, disagreements, methods, and perspectives which can be hard to organize in a meaningful way. Because you'll be reading a number of resources, a synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Literature Reviews

Introduction, what is a literature review.

• Literature Reviews for Thesis or Dissertation
• Stand-alone and Systemic Reviews
• Purposes of a Literature Review
• Texts on Conducting a Literature Review
• Identifying the Research Topic
• The Persuasive Argument
• Searching the Literature
• Creating a Synthesis
• Critiquing the Literature
• Building the Case for the Literature Review Document
• Presenting the Literature Review

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Literature Reviews by Lawrence A. Machi , Brenda T. McEvoy LAST REVIEWED: 21 April 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0169

Literature reviews play a foundational role in the development and execution of a research project. They provide access to the academic conversation surrounding the topic of the proposed study. By engaging in this scholarly exercise, the researcher is able to learn and to share knowledge about the topic. The literature review acts as the springboard for new research, in that it lays out a logically argued case, founded on a comprehensive understanding of the current state of knowledge about the topic. The case produced provides the justification for the research question or problem of a proposed study, and the methodological scheme best suited to conduct the research. It can also be a research project in itself, arguing policy or practice implementation, based on a comprehensive analysis of the research in a field. The term literature review can refer to the output or the product of a review. It can also refer to the process of Conducting a Literature Review . Novice researchers, when attempting their first research projects, tend to ask two questions: What is a Literature Review? How do you do one? While this annotated bibliography is neither definitive nor exhaustive in its treatment of the subject, it is designed to provide a beginning researcher, who is pursuing an academic degree, an entry point for answering the two previous questions. The article is divided into two parts. The first four sections of the article provide a general overview of the topic. They address definitions, types, purposes, and processes for doing a literature review. The second part presents the process and procedures for doing a literature review. Arranged in a sequential fashion, the remaining eight sections provide references addressing each step of the literature review process. References included in this article were selected based on their ability to assist the beginning researcher. Additionally, the authors attempted to include texts from various disciplines in social science to present various points of view on the subject.

Novice researchers often have a misguided perception of how to do a literature review and what the document should contain. Literature reviews are not narrative annotated bibliographies nor book reports (see Bruce 1994 ). Their form, function, and outcomes vary, due to how they depend on the research question, the standards and criteria of the academic discipline, and the orthodoxies of the research community charged with the research. The term literature review can refer to the process of doing a review as well as the product resulting from conducting a review. The product resulting from reviewing the literature is the concern of this section. Literature reviews for research studies at the master’s and doctoral levels have various definitions. Machi and McEvoy 2016 presents a general definition of a literature review. Lambert 2012 defines a literature review as a critical analysis of what is known about the study topic, the themes related to it, and the various perspectives expressed regarding the topic. Fink 2010 defines a literature review as a systematic review of existing body of data that identifies, evaluates, and synthesizes for explicit presentation. Jesson, et al. 2011 defines the literature review as a critical description and appraisal of a topic. Hart 1998 sees the literature review as producing two products: the presentation of information, ideas, data, and evidence to express viewpoints on the nature of the topic, as well as how it is to be investigated. When considering literature reviews beyond the novice level, Ridley 2012 defines and differentiates the systematic review from literature reviews associated with primary research conducted in academic degree programs of study, including stand-alone literature reviews. Cooper 1998 states the product of literature review is dependent on the research study’s goal and focus, and defines synthesis reviews as literature reviews that seek to summarize and draw conclusions from past empirical research to determine what issues have yet to be resolved. Theoretical reviews compare and contrast the predictive ability of theories that explain the phenomenon, arguing which theory holds the most validity in describing the nature of that phenomenon. Grant and Booth 2009 identified fourteen types of reviews used in both degree granting and advanced research projects, describing their attributes and methodologies.

Bruce, Christine Susan. 1994. Research students’ early experiences of the dissertation literature review. Studies in Higher Education 19.2: 217–229.

DOI: 10.1080/03075079412331382057

A phenomenological analysis was conducted with forty-one neophyte research scholars. The responses to the questions, “What do you mean when you use the words literature review?” and “What is the meaning of a literature review for your research?” identified six concepts. The results conclude that doing a literature review is a problem area for students.

Cooper, Harris. 1998. Synthesizing research . Vol. 2. 3d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

The introductory chapter of this text provides a cogent explanation of Cooper’s understanding of literature reviews. Chapter 4 presents a comprehensive discussion of the synthesis review. Chapter 5 discusses meta-analysis and depth.

Fink, Arlene. 2010. Conducting research literature reviews: From the Internet to paper . 3d ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.

The first chapter of this text (pp. 1–16) provides a short but clear discussion of what a literature review is in reference to its application to a broad range of social sciences disciplines and their related professions.

Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. 2009. A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal 26.2: 91–108. Print.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

This article reports a scoping review that was conducted using the “Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, and Analysis” (SALSA) framework. Fourteen literature review types and associated methodology make up the resulting typology. Each type is described by its key characteristics and analyzed for its strengths and weaknesses.

Hart, Chris. 1998. Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research imagination . London: SAGE.

Chapter 1 of this text explains Hart’s definition of a literature review. Additionally, it describes the roles of the literature review, the skills of a literature reviewer, and the research context for a literature review. Of note is Hart’s discussion of the literature review requirements for master’s degree and doctoral degree work.

Jesson, Jill, Lydia Matheson, and Fiona M. Lacey. 2011. Doing your literature review: Traditional and systematic techniques . Los Angeles: SAGE.

Chapter 1: “Preliminaries” provides definitions of traditional and systematic reviews. It discusses the differences between them. Chapter 5 is dedicated to explaining the traditional review, while Chapter 7 explains the systematic review. Chapter 8 provides a detailed description of meta-analysis.

Lambert, Mike. 2012. A beginner’s guide to doing your education research project . Los Angeles: SAGE.

Chapter 6 (pp. 79–100) presents a thumbnail sketch for doing a literature review.

Machi, Lawrence A., and Brenda T. McEvoy. 2016. The literature review: Six steps to success . 3d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

The introduction of this text differentiates between a simple and an advanced review and concisely defines a literature review.

Ridley, Diana. 2012. The literature review: A step-by-step guide for students . 2d ed. Sage Study Skills. London: SAGE.

In the introductory chapter, Ridley reviews many definitions of the literature review, literature reviews at the master’s and doctoral level, and placement of literature reviews within the thesis or dissertation document. She also defines and differentiates literature reviews produced for degree-affiliated research from the more advanced systematic review projects.

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Video explanations of a literature review, what is a literature review, types of literature reviews.

• Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

"A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment, ..., but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries."

- Taylor, D. (n.d). The literature review: A few tips on conducting it. Retrieved from  http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

- Baumeister, R.F. & Leary, M.R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews. Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Systematic review - "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139)

- Nelson, L.K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing.

Meta-analysis - "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing resarch findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occured in different studies." (p. 197)

-Roberts, M.C. & Ilardi, S.S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Meta-synthesis - " Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312)

-Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts. Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.03721.x

From University of Connecticut Library

Traditional or Narrative

• Provides background for understanding current knowledge
• Critiques, summarizes and draws conclusions from a body of knowledge
• Identifies gaps or inconsistencies to be filled or corrected through further research and study
• Helps to refine the topic and research question
• Carries the flaw of becoming less useful as more information becomes available
• Identifies, appraises and synthesizes available evidence in order to answer a specified research question
• Applies a more rigorous approach that details the time frame of selected literature and method of critique and analysis
• Uses explicit and well-defined methods in order to minimize bias and increase reliability
• Includes as comprehensive an amount of studies as possible that includes both published and unpublished findings, such as "grey literature"

Meta-Analysis

• Systematically locates, appraises and synthesizes data from a large body of findings using statistical analysis and techniques
• Similar to a systematic review in that it integrates the findings of a large body of knowledge
• Attempts to correct flaws of traditional or narrative reviews by allowing researchers to synthesize a greater amount of studies
• Integrates and draws conclusions on research findings and seeks to detect broad patterns and relationships between studies

Meta-Synthesis

• Attempts to bring together, juxtapose, re-analyze and combine findings from multiple qualitiative studies using non-statistical techniques
• Seeks to discover or provide new interpretations, conceptions or theoretical developments
• Combines multiple studies to identify common key themes and elements
• May use findings from phenomenological, grounded theory or ethnographic studies

Borenstein, M.H., Viggins, L.V. & Julian, P.T. (2009). Introduction to Meta-Analysis. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley

Cronin, P., Ryan, F. & Coughlan, M. (2008). Undertaking a literature review: A step-by-step approach . British Journal of Nursing, 17 (1), 38-43.

Glasziou, P. (2001). Systematic Reviews in Health Care : A Practical Guide. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mays, C., Popay, N. & Jennie (2007).  Synthesising Qualitative and Quantitative Health Research : A Guide to Methods . Great Britain: Open University Press.

From Bow Valley College Library

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What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a “critical analysis of a segment of a published body of knowledge through summary, classification, and comparison of prior research studies, reviews of literature, and theoretical articles” (University of Wisconsin Writing Center).

Do not confuse a literature review with an annotated bibliography.

Information for this page is taken from the Thompson Writing Program .

• The introduction should explain why you are writing the review (“so what/who cares?”) and make some central claims about the current state of the literature (e.g. trends, debates, gaps, etc.).
• Organize the body of the paper by common denominators among sources, such as methodologies, conclusions, philosophical approaches, or possibly chronology (assuming topical subsections)
• The conclusion should summarize significant contributions to the field, situate the reviewed literature in the larger context of the discipline, point out flaws or gaps in the research, and/or suggest future areas of study.
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Sociology: lit reviews.

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Literature Review

In a  literature review you explore research that has come before you and is relevant to your topic. It can help you identify:

• Core research in the field
• Experts in the subject area
• Methodology you may want to use (or avoid)
• Gaps in the literature -- or where your research would fit in

Helpful approaches:

• See what literature reviews already exist on your topic! Databases like Oxford Bibliographies Online: Sociology and Sociological Abstracts (limit the document type to literature review) can save you a lot of time. Also don’t forget the Annual Review of Sociology , and the Proquest Dissertations and Theses database; these in-depth pieces usually have comprehensive lists of references.
• Citation slogging (aka "snowballing") -- work your way back through citations (or footnotes) to key articles
• Forward citation -- see who has cited key articles using  Google Scholar  and  Web of Science Cited Reference Search  . ​

Writing Guidelines:

• Start with Writing for Sociology  from the UC Berkeley Sociology Department—it’s packed with great content!
• A great overview of the entire process from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
• A piece from the blog Everyday Sociology on “ How (and Why) to Write a Literature Review ”

Systematic Reviews

Systematic reviews are not the same as literature reviews; instead, they can be considered an extremely rigorous subset of literature reviews.  Generally, systematic reviews take a team of professionals and one to two years to complete, and they usually can't be done for avenues of research which are newly being explored (there needs to be an established body of literature to examine).  This makes them very helpful resources if they exist for your topic of interest!

You may wish to peruse UCSF's  Systematic Review Guide  for information.

If you do decide to do a systematic review, UC Berkeley licenses  Covidence , a tool to help you. In Covidence, you can  import citations ,  screen titles and abstracts ,  upload references ,  screen full text ,  create forms for critical appraisal ,  perform risk of bias tables ,  complete data extraction , and  export a PRISMA flowchart  summarizing your review process. As an institutional member, our users have priority access to Covidence support.   To access Covidence using the UC Berkeley institutional account ,  start at this page  and follow the instructions.

Great brief overview, from NCSU

Synthesizing the literature

Now That You Have All Those Articles, How Do You Synthesize Them?

Unlike the annotated bibliography, the literature review does not just summarize each article or book. Instead, they synthesize. Some researchers find it helpful to develop a framework, making a column for each element that they want to compare. The elements vary depending on the research, making it easier to understand the relationships between  all  the articles and how they relate to your research. Here's  one example !

How To Organize and Cite Your Research

Citation management tools  help you manage your research, collect and cite sources, and create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles.  Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, but any are easier than doing it by hand! The Library offers   workshops  on Endnote, Zotero, and Refworks. I'm also happy to help arrange a small group workshop, or one on one help with Zotero. 

For more information on the various tools available, and more on Zotero, see the "Managing Citations" tab in this guide!

Find Dissertations

Dissertations and Theses (Dissertation Abstracts) Full Text : indexes dissertations from over 1,000 North American, and selected European, graduate schools and universities from 1861 to the present. Full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997.

UC Berkeley dissertations : Search UC Library Search  by author. Also helpful to see dissertations written in your department which you can do by doing a subject search:

• subject:  university of california berkeley dept of psychology dissertations
• subject:  dissertations academic ucb psychology

Recent UC Berkeley dissertations are freely available online to anyone, anywhere with access to the internet. Also see  Find Dissertations and Theses  for other specialized sources.

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Soc 001: introductory sociology.

• Literature Reviews: Strategies for Writing
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Literature Reviews

What is a Literature Review? The literature review is a critical look at the existing research that is significant to the work that you are carrying out. This overview identifies prominent research trends in addition to assessing the overall strengths and weaknesses of the existing research.

Purpose of the Literature Review

• To provide background information about a research topic.
• To establish the importance of a topic.
• To demonstrate familiarity with a topic/problem.
• To “carve out a space” for further work and allow you to position yourself in a scholarly conversation.

Characteristics of an effective literature review In addition to fulfilling the purposes outlined above, an effective literature review provides a critical overview of existing research by

• Outlining important research trends.
• Assessing strengths and weaknesses (of individual studies as well the existing research as a whole).
• Identifying potential gaps in knowledge.
• Establishing a need for current and/or future research projects.

Steps of the Literature Review Process

1) Planning: identify the focus, type, scope and discipline of the review you intend to write. 2) Reading and Research: collect and read current research on your topic. Select only those sources that are most relevant to your project. 3) Analyzing: summarize, synthesize, critique, and compare your sources in order to assess the field of research as a whole. 4) Drafting: develop a thesis or claim to make about the existing research and decide how to organize your material. 5) Revising: revise and finalize the structural, stylistic, and grammatical issues of your paper.

This process is not always a linear process; depending on the size and scope of your literature review, you may find yourself returning to some of these steps repeatedly as you continue to focus your project.

These steps adapted from the full workshop offered by the Graduate Writing Center at Penn State. 

Literature Review Format

 Introduction

• Provide an overview of the topic, theme, or issue.
• Identify your specific area of focus.
• Describe your methodology and rationale. How did you decide which sources to include and which to exclude? Why? How is your review organized?
• Briefly discuss the overall trends in the published scholarship in this area.
•  Establish your reason for writing the review.
•  Find the best organizational method for your review.
•  Summarize sources by providing the most relevant information.
•  Respectfully and objectively critique and evaluate the studies.
•  Use direct quotations sparingly and only if appropriate.

 Conclusion

•  Summarize the major findings of the sources that you reviewed, remembering to keep the focus on your topic.
•  Evaluate the current state of scholarship in this area (ex. flaws or gaps in the research, inconsistencies in findings) 
•  Identify any areas for further research.
•  Conclude by making a connection between your topic and some larger area of study such as the discipline. 
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What is a literature review?

How do i write one, for more information.

The American Sociological Association Style Guide can be found on the first floor at REF HM 569 .A54 2019.

For a brief introduction to ASA, click here .

A literature review is used to show that you have read, evaluated, and comprehended the published research on a particular topic. A literature review is structured to show to your professors that you understand the work that has been done in the past on a topic, and will serve as a jumping off point for whatever research you are conducting.   It can either be a stand-alone document, or a section at the beginning of a research paper, master’s thesis, special project, or report. Writing a literature review will require you to locate published research on a topic, read those materials, and write a description and evaluation of the works.

STEP ONE: What is your topic?

What is your research project? You really can’t begin to write a literature review until you have determined what your own research is about. Determine the problem and the population you are studying.  

STEP TWO: Time to visit the library!

Search SouthernSearch  and relevant online databases, such as SocIndex and JSTOR, to locate previously published research on your subject. This will involve finding books, journal articles, dissertations and theses, and possibly reports from governmental agencies or independent organizations.   

STEP THREE: Read and think!

Read and critically evaluate each item that you have located.   What are the researcher’s credentials? What kind of methodology was used? Do you find the research to be objective? Do you find the conclusions persuasive?   How does the research contribute to your understanding of the issue that you are researching? Are the researchers saying the same things, or are they coming to different conclusions? What are the relationships between the articles? What has been said, and what has not been said? What are some areas for future research?   

STEP FOUR: Start writing!

You may want to sort the materials you have read based on their different themes, theoretical foundations, or varying conclusions. Then, for each article, describe the research that was done and the conclusions of the authors. Discuss how that particular work contributes to the understanding of the subject that you are working on.

Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper REF Q 180.55 .M4 F56 2005

Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination  STACKS H 62 .H2566 1998

Preparing Literature Reviews: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches  STACKS Q 180.55 .E9 P36 2008

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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an explanation of what has been published on a subject by recognized researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment (sometimes in the form of an annotated bibliography, but more often it is part of the introduction to a   research report, essay, thesis or dissertation.) Critical literature reviews help to write your literature review more effectively: A literature review must do these things: a. be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing b. synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known c. identify areas of controversy in the literature d. formulate questions that need further research Before writing literature review ask yourself questions like these:

1. What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my review of literature helps to define?

2. What type of literature review am I conducting? Am I looking at issues of theory? methodology? policy? quantitative research (e.g. on the effectiveness of a new procedure)? qualitative research (e.g., studies )?

3. What is the scope of my literature review? What types of publications am I using (e.g., journals, books, government documents, popular media)? What discipline am I working in (e.g., management , organizational behavior, 

marketing)?

4. How good was my information seeking? Has my search been wide enough to ensure I've found all the relevant material? Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material? Is the number of sources I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?

5. Have I critically analyzed the literature I use? Do I follow through a set of concepts and questions, comparing items to each other in the ways they deal with them? Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do I assess them, discussing strengths and weaknesses?

6. Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my perspective?

7. Will the reader find my literature review relevant, appropriate, and useful?

Tips on writing a literature review (Hart 1998)

Lit Review Tips

Search for the most recent articles that deal with your topic; many of them will summarize the prior literature in the area, saving you valuable time. Remember to attribute even if you paraphrase!

Literature reviews can be overwhelming. You can't find everything. Just find the literature that gets discussed the most or is most relevant to your topic.

The goal of the literature review is to show that you understand the 'bigger picture' and can put your research and recommendations in context of others working in the field.

Need help writing a literature review?

Writing Literature Reviews : A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences by Jose L. Galvan.

Library North 2nd floor

H 61.8 G34 2014

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Sociology: Literature Reviews

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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an evaluative report of information found in the literature related to your selected area of study. The review should describe, summarise, evaluate and clarify this literature. It should give a theoretical base for the research and help you  determine the nature of your research.

During the course of your studies you may be required to carry out a literature review on a specfic topic. A literature review will often form part of your dissertation.

For guidance on literature reviews in Criminology and the Social Sciences, see: Denney, A.S. and Tewksbury, R. (2013) ‘How to Write a Literature Review’, Journal of criminal justice education , 24(2), pp. 218–234. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2012.730617 .

Writing literature reviews

Emerald's "How to guides.." are very useful for help starting research, In particular their guide on literature reviews:  How to write a literature review.

The first step in your literature review is to carry out a  literature search .

You can also find support for writing literature reviews and developing academic writing on the LET web pages , and on the MyLearning page for your module.

Literature Reviews as a Research Method

While many studies include background literature reviews to gather existing evidence before undertaking their own primary data collection, others may use literature reviews as a method themselves. This involves critically appraising the available evidence already constructed on a topic and drawing conclusions, and is a type of secondary, or desk-based research. You may choose this method for your undergraduate or postgraduate dissertation.

Studies that use literature reviews as a method include:

• Narrative reviews  e.g. Kiriakidis, S.P. and Kavoura, A. (2010) ‘Cyberbullying: A Review of the Literature on Harassment Through the Internet and Other Electronic Means’, Family & Community Health , 33(2), pp. 82–93.
• Systematic reviews e.g. Higgs, T., Carter, A. J., Tully, R. J. and Browne, K. D. (2017) ‘Sexual murder typologies: A systematic review’, Aggression and Violent Behavior , 35, pp. 1–12.
• Rapid evidence assessments e.g. Hobson, J.. Twyman-Ghoshal, A., Ash, D. P., and Banwell-Moore, R. (2022) Metropolitan Police Service Restorative Justice Rapid Evidence Assessment for Violence Against Women and Girls and Youth Violence. Project Report. University of Gloucestershire.
• Meta-analysis e.g. Baranyi, G., Di Marco, M. H., Russ, T. C., Dibben, C. and Pearce, J. (2021) ‘The impact of neighbourhood crime on mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis’,  Social science & medicine , 282, pp. 114106–114106.

For more information on this topic, see Dr Myrna Papadouka's excellent workshop: Literature Reviews as a Research Method (MDX users only). This article also contains a useful summary of different types of reviews.

If you come across one of these published literature reviews in your own topic, you can use these to help you gather the existing evidence, before going on to conduct your own research.

Books on Literature Reviews

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What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

• Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
• Explain why this review has taken place;
• Articulate a position or hypothesis;
• Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

• Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
• Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

• Organizes or describes a topic
• Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

• It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
• It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
• It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
• It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Meryl Brodsky : Communication and Information Studies

Hannah Chapman Tripp : Biology, Neuroscience

Carolyn Cunningham : Human Development & Family Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

Larayne Dallas : Engineering

Janelle Hedstrom : Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Ed Leadership & Policy ​

Susan Macicak : Linguistics

Imelda Vetter : Dell Medical School

For help in other subject areas, please see the guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

• October 26, 2022 recording
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Mapping the Social-Norms Literature: An Overview of Reviews

Sophie legros.

1 Department of International Development, London School of Economics

Beniamino Cislaghi

2 Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

The theoretical literature on social norms is multifaceted and at times contradictory. Looking at existing reviews, we aimed to offer a more complete understanding of its current status. By investigating the conceptual frameworks and organizing elements used to compare social-norms theories, we identified four theoretical spaces of inquiry that were common across the reviews: what social norms are, what relationship exists between social norms and behavior, how social norms evolve, and what categories of actors must be considered in the study of social norms. We highlight areas of consensus and debate in the reviews around these four themes and discuss points of agreement and disagreement that uncover trajectories for future empirical and theoretical investigation.

Few concepts in the social sciences are as fundamental and cross-disciplinary as the concept of social norms, commonly understood as the unwritten rules shared by members of the same group or society ( Hecter & Opp, 2001 ). The study of social norms spans several disciplines, including philosophy ( Nichols, 2002 ), sociology ( Durkheim, 1951 ), social and moral psychology ( Deutsch & Gerard, 1955 ; Kahneman & Miller, 1986 ; Miller & Prentice, 1994 ; Sherif, 1936 ), law ( Posner, 2009 ), economics ( Ostrom, 2014 ), anthropology ( Boyd & Richerson, 1994 ), gender studies ( Butler, 2004 ), health sciences ( Berkowitz, 2002 ; Fleming & Agnew-Brune, 2015 ; Sheeran et al., 2016 ), communication studies ( Smith, Atkin, Martell, Allen, & Hembroff, 2006 ), environmental studies ( de Groot & Schuitema, 2012 ), political science ( Dalton, 2008 ), finance ( Hong & Kacperczyk, 2009 ), marketing ( Gregory & Munch, 1997 ), and information technology ( Loch, Straub, & Kamel, 2003 ). The concept of social norms already populated the work of early philosophers, such as Aristotle ( Keyt & Miller, 1993 ), as well as later ones, such as Thomasius ( Wickham, 2007 ), Locke ( Grant, 1988 ), Hume (1739/1978 ), and many thereafter. However, the allusions to norms existed in religious doctrines and philosophical knowledge that preceded Aristotle by thousands of years ( Norenzayan et al., 2016 ).

The cross-disciplinary manifestation of the social norms concept has meant the literature on what norms are and how they affect people’s actions has grown in very different directions and today includes several, often conflicting, theories. A few scholars have taken on the task of putting order to it, the result being a series of reviews. Most reviews, however, tend to look at the social-norms literature in two disciplines at most, leaving those who intend to engage in cross-disciplinary conversations without a common language and understanding. Many begin with a caveat similar to the one from Young (2015) : “Given space limitations, it is impossible to provide a comprehensive account of . . . [the social norms] literature” (p. 360).

There also exists a considerable body of theoretical and empirical work that is not formally part of the social-norms literature but that has strong conceptual linkages to it. For instance, theoretical and empirical studies in anthropology, sociology, and gender studies have looked extensively at theoretical concepts such as, to cite three examples, socialization (the process through which individuals learn the norms of a given society; Jensen Arnett, 2015 ), acculturation (the process through which an individual adapts another culture’s norms; Ward & Geeraert, 2016 ), or structural ritualization (the dynamics through which collective practices acquire symbolic significance; Knottnerus, 1997 ). Similar concepts are connected to norms, even though they are not explicitly included in the work of those authors who specifically studied social norms dynamics. Because they are a critical component of the grammar of society ( Bicchieri, 2006 ), social norms are closely interwoven with other important processes (as the three we mentioned) and social and psychological concepts, such as attitudes (one’s individual preference about something; Petty & Brinol, 2010 ), factual beliefs (one’s beliefs about how the physical world functions; Heiphetz, Spelke, Harris, & Banaji, 2014 ), or self-efficacy and group efficacy (one’s beliefs about one’s or one’s group’s capacity to achieve a given goal; Bandura, Freeman, & Lightsey, 1999 ). These various constructs contribute to creating a web of meanings that affects how people feel, think, and act. Together, they occupy a large space of investigation in that multidisciplinary system of theories usually referred to as social theory ( Merton & Merton, 1968 ; Seidman, 2016 ).

Although establishing definitive common ground across social-norms theories might be impossible given the disciplinary distance between some of these theories, the opportunity exists to increase awareness of current debates across disciplines and theories by comparing and contrasting existing reviews, laying the ground for further research on social norms to engage with broader social theory. In this article, we provide a map of the social-norms literature by comparing existing reviews and highlighting areas of agreement and disagreement emerging from these reviews.

Our larger aim was to look at how different reviews had organized the social-norms literature, particularly how reviews of social-norms theory had classified, compared, and analyzed theories from different disciplines. Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we searched five databases (PubMed, ProQuest, Web of Science, JSTOR, and Cochrane) for articles that reviewed social-norms theories from one or multiple disciplinary perspectives. We included articles that (a) were written in English; (b) were published in either a peer-reviewed journal or as gray literature; (c) explicitly mentioned social norms (for instance, articles on social influence or gender norms were excluded); and (d) organized the social-norms literature by comparing theories from two or more disciplines (articles that exclusively examine social norms within sociology were excluded). Empirical articles were not included unless they contained a review of different theoretical approaches to social norms (as in the case of Boytsun, Deloof, & Matthyssens, 2011 ).

We used the following search terms: s ocial norms ; ( social norms OR social norm ) AND ( review OR theor * OR model *); social norm * AND overview; norm * AND review ; and norm * AND concept *. Our initial scoping of the literature produced 624 records. We added 52 records from the gray literature that were identified through snowballing. After removing duplicates, we had 412 records. We screened these records and shortlisted 57 of them. We assessed the full-text articles for eligibility and rated the records independently, arriving at a list of 30 articles. We then confronted our rankings, resolved disagreements, and decided on a case-by-case basis for the articles that were not explicitly marked as reviews, obtaining the final 22 studies included in this qualitative synthesis. Table 1 provides an overview of these studies as an indication of the discipline from which they originated as well as the aim to which they were written.

Overview of Articles Included in the Analysis

Four key themes emerged from the data that were relevant to the aim set forth herein. We present these four themes in the Results section and ask the following four questions. First, what are the definitions of social norms included in the reviews (i.e., what are social norms)? Second, what pathways of normative influence are commonly identified in the literature? Third, what types of mechanisms are described in the reviews for how social norms come about, evolve, and dissipate? And fourth, what categories of agents are identified in the reviews as relevant in the study of social norms? In the next section, we look at results for each of these themes in detail before discussing their relevance and offering some concluding remarks on future potential trajectories for research on social norms.

What are social norms?

The social-norms literature is characterized by a great variety of definitions and theoretical approaches with regard to what constructs are considered social norms. Here, we present points of consensus and debate across reviews on what social norms are and what they are not.

Consensus and debate on what social norms are not

Although little universal consensus exists on what social norms are, much more exists on what they are not. Table 2 summarizes the areas of implicit and explicit consensus and debate about what social norms are and are not.

Areas of Consensus and Debate Across Reviews

Note: Theoretical positions that were either explicitly mentioned by reviewers or implied by their definitions of social norms are summarized in the first column.

Reviewers tend to agree that social norms are not instinctual or reactive behaviors such as crying while cutting onions, shivering from walking out in the cold, or running away from wild dogs barking in a street at night ( Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Popitz, 2017 ). Social norms are also different from personal tastes (e.g., liking lemon sorbet; J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ). Reviews also specify that social norms are not personal habits, such as putting glasses in their case on the bedside table before going to sleep.

Social norms are also not simple behavioral regularities in groups of people ( Bicchieri, Muldoon, & Sontuoso, 2011 ). Some behavioral regularities can be attributed to norms, whereas others may be the result of nonnormative factors ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Etzioni, 2000 ). Nonnormative factors shaping behavioral regularities include environmental factors (a decrease in workers’ productivity because of heat waves), policy or technological changes (an increase in the number of people working into older age following improvements in the health-care system of a country), and scarcity of choice for other reasons (Irish people eating potatoes during the famine that hit Ireland in the 19th century). Nonnormative regularities can also be attributed to individual characteristics and tastes. People tend to interact with those with whom they share a particular interest—for instance, Japanese cinema enthusiasts will autonomously join a Japanese cinema society. This process, through which people with a common taste join together to pursue their interest, leads to similarities within a group that are not due to norms but to personal preferences, a phenomenon commonly referred to as homophily ( McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001 ).

Consensus and debate on what social norms are

Across the reviews, we found three points of consensus on what social norms are. First, most agree that social norms must be “social” in some sense (although, as discussed below, they disagree on what this means). Second, most reviewers agree that social norms inform action-oriented decision making in some way (as we detail further below). Finally, most reviews mention that social norms can affect people’s health and well-being. A majority note that social norms can be beneficial to cooperation and to social order ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Boytsun et al., 2011 ; Burke & Young, 2011 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mahmoud, Ahmad, Yusoff, & Mustapha, 2014 ; Siu, Shek, & Law, 2012 ; Villatoro, Sen, & Sabater-Mir, 2010 ; Young, 2015 ). However, although social norms can help people live together, focusing exclusively on their positive functions limits the potential of social-norms theory to explain the persistence of harmful practices and behaviors ( Mackie, Moneti, Shakya, & Denny, 2015 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Vaitla, Taylor, Van Horn, & Cislaghi, 2017 ). A smaller number of reviews explicitly discuss social norms that are harmful. These reviews examine norms that (a) encourage a variety of unhealthy behaviors such as drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or sharing needles ( Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Reid, Cialdini, & Aiken, 2010 ); (b) result in harmful practices such as child marriage ( Vaitla et al., 2017 ) or female genital mutilation/cutting ( Mackie et al., 2015 ); or (c) sustain discriminatory practices such as feuding norms ( Young, 2015 ), norms authorizing violence in genocides ( Popitz, 2017 ), and caste norms ( Sunstein, 1996 ).

Health-and-development practitioners have been mostly interested in using social-norms theory to investigate why people comply with harmful health-related practices and what can be done to change their actions. Sociologists and moral psychologists have instead offered a large body of work on the benefits and evolutionary advantages of prosocial norms. We find it important to look at both positive and negative effects of complying with norms. Discarding their positive effect might make us mindless of the critical role that social norms play in human societies; health interventions should not aim to “remove” social norms in an attempt to make people more independent of others. That is not only impossible but (as the evidence above suggests) also harmful to people’s well-being. At the same time, norms can be harmful; studying why people comply with these norms and how can they be changed can equip policymakers with important strategies to improve people’s health and well-being.

Despite the points of consensus mentioned above, profound theoretical disagreement exists on what norms are. As we mentioned, reviewers disagree on what it means for norms to be social. To some reviewers, norms are social because they stem from human interactions ( Burke & Young, 2011 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Morris, Hong, Chiu, & Liu, 2015 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ; Young, 2015 ), whereas other reviewers define them as social because they are expectations about other people’s beliefs and behaviors ( Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ), because they hold social meaning ( Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Popitz, 2017 ; Sunstein, 1996 ), or because they allow the functioning of the social structure ( Popitz, 2017 ; Sunstein, 1996 ). We found further sources of disagreement among the reviews. One major distinction that emerged in our analysis is whether social norms are an individual or collective construct.

As individual constructs, social norms are understood to be psychological states of individuals, such as beliefs or emotions. As collective constructs, they are understood to be conditions or features of social groups or structures. In Table 3 , we grouped the definitions of social norms provided across the literature that fall into either conceptual category (individual or collective constructs).

Social Norms as Individual and Collective Constructs

Although many reviewers recognize that different definitions exist in the literature, some privilege one type of construct in their definition. Specifically, six reviews focus mainly on theories that define social norms as individual constructs ( Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Reid et al., 2010 ; Siu et al., 2012 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ). Most theories of norms as individual constructs define them as the beliefs of an individual of what is common (what people do in situation X ) and approved (the extent to which people approve of those who do Y in situation X ) in a given group or society. Seminal here is the work by Cialdini, Reno, and Kallgren (1990) , who call beliefs of the first type descriptive norms and beliefs of the second type injunctive norms . A few reviewers mention emotions as part of their conception of social norms. Most refer to feelings in passing, but one review ( Siu et al., 2012 ) explicitly defines prosocial norms as prosocial feelings.

By contrast, 10 reviews privilege theories of social norms as collective constructs, that is, external (as opposed to internal) forces affecting people’s actions. These constructs include, for instance, shared or institutionalized community rules that are part of the cultural ethos of a group (such as monogamous or polygamous family structures) or behavioral patterns observed within groups and societies (e.g., voter turnout; see Table 3 ; E. Anderson, 2000 ; J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Boytsun et al., 2011 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Gibbs, 1965 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Popitz, 2017 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ). Finally, 6 reviews include both individual and collective constructs of social norms in their analyses ( Burke & Young, 2011 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Young, 2015 ).

It comes as no surprise that the social-norms literature includes theories that look at norms as either individual or collective constructs or that strive to integrate the two. Both approaches have their own benefits. Understanding social norms as individual constructs is more appropriate to the study of the psychological mechanisms underlying normative phenomena. We found, for instance, greater advantages of using a norm as individual constructs in public-health research and action as well as in targeted behavioral-change interventions in international development. Approaches that look at social norms as individuals’ beliefs were widely used to design effective programmatic and measurement strategies for health promotion ( Cislaghi & Heise, 2019 ). On the other hand, theories that define social norms as collective constructs will be helpful to researchers investigating how norms operate and diffuse through time at the population level, as it might happen, for instance, in historical and anthropological studies. Integrating the two approaches might be helpful in finally uncovering their dialectically reciprocal influence, as some reviewers have themselves suggested ( Burke & Young, 2011 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Young, 2015 ). Researchers interested in conducting cross-disciplinary work on social norms, such as studying how people’s normative beliefs are embodied and influenced by formal institutions (such as the education system or the family), will likely benefit from approaching both streams of thought on what social norms are. Research in international development, for instance, has often focused on the mechanisms through which social norms influence community practices and could be complemented by the understanding of how social norms are embedded in national economic and political structures and how they interact with broader processes of change.

What pathways of normative influence are commonly identified in the literature?

Across the reviews we found further disagreement, mostly reflecting disciplinary boundaries, on the relation between norms and behavior. This disagreement specifically related to (a) whether reviewers consider one or multiple pathways of influence from norm to action and (b) whether they understand norms as “direct” or “indirect” (see below) sources of influence.

Reviews that consider one normative pathway include, for example, the suggestion that social norm compliance is exclusively motivated by the presence or anticipation of positive or negative sanctions ( Villatoro et al., 2010 ) or by the simultaneous presence of both empirical and normative expectations (two concepts not too conceptually distant from, respectively, descriptive and injunctive norms; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ). One implication of this position is that without the required sanctions or beliefs in the case of Bicchieri et al. (2018), the reviewers assume that compliance will not follow from the social norm. Other reviewers, instead, suggest multiple pathways to compliance. These reviewers recognize that norms can translate into action in a variety of situations and under different conditions. Some look at descriptive and injunctive norms as two pathways of influence: Descriptive norms offer information people can use to orient their actions, whereas injunctive norms put pressure on people to meet other people’s expectations ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Reid et al., 2010 ). Others investigate an even wider array of pathways of normative influence. One review ( Bell & Cox, 2015 ), for example, presented four pathways: uncertainty (e.g., people look at what others do when they are unsure about what is the best course of action), identity (e.g., people comply with social norms to express membership in a group), reward (e.g., people anticipate rewards for compliance), and enforcement (e.g., the group forces individuals into compliance).

The second main difference in how reviews explain how norms affect behavior is whether they understood social norms as direct or indirect sources of influence. Norms are direct sources of influence when they alone are sufficient to direct behavior ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Burke & Young, 2011 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Gibbs, 1965 ; Goldstein & Mortensen, 2012 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ; Young, 2015 ). As an example, think of a person who joins a bus line simply because he or she knows that others do so. Changes in norms that exert direct influence should, logically, result in a change in people’s behavior: If people stop queuing for the bus, latecomers will not queue either. By contrast, when a norm is an indirect source of influence, it intersects with one or multiple intermediary factors to cause that action ( Boytsun et al., 2011 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Reid et al., 2010 ; Siu et al., 2012 ; Sunstein, 1996 ). For example, Chung and Rimal (2016) suggest that norms lead to an intermediary element, a behavioral intention, that is mediated by various behavioral, individual, and contextual factors that can either strengthen or reduce the influence of a norm. These factors include, for instance, the perceived cost of acting in accordance with the norm or the time constraints the individual faces in making a choice about how to behave. When a norm exerts indirect influence, changing norms may not be sufficient to change behavior because the ecology of factors sustaining that behavior might still hold.

In addition to the two differences above, we also found that reviewers disagree on the specific pathways that lead from norm to action. Three pathways in particular emerged from our analysis. According to these pathways, norms affect behavior by providing value-neutral information, creating external obligations, and becoming internal obligations.

Norms providing value-neutral information

Some social norms provide neutral information about what action is common, indicating practical or efficient courses of action for what the individual had set out to do (e.g., navigate a new city, use public transportation, feed oneself, coordinate with others). Social norms that provide information are often referred to as either descriptive norms ( Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Reid et al., 2010 ), empirical expectations ( Bicchieri et al., 2011 ), or collective expectations ( Gibbs, 1965 ). Norms motivate actions by providing information in situations in which

• People must choose between different value-neutral courses of action and do not have a strong preference for either alternative (e.g., “Since everyone is walking on the left side of the sidewalk, I will also walk on the left side”; J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ).
• People use benchmarks or points of reference as heuristic standards of what they should achieve in life and when (e.g., “I aspire to have my first child by 30 because that is when most people normally have their first child in my social group”; Young, 2015 ).
• People try to figure out the most efficient courses of action to achieve a concrete goal (e.g., “If everyone else drives to work, it must be the most effective way of getting there”; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Burke & Young, 2011 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Reid et al., 2010 ).
• People need a convention to allow their interaction (e.g., “Everyone speaks English at this meeting, so I will speak English too”; Burke & Young, 2011 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ; Young, 2015 ).

When they provide information, norms do not necessarily affect people’s attitudes, as opposed to when they create external obligations.

Norms creating external obligations

In addition to providing neutral information, social norms can exert pressure on individuals to act in a specific way ( Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ). When norms follow this pathway to action, people consider the possible positive or negative consequences that will follow their compliance or lack of it ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Reid et al., 2010 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Young, 2015 ). These consequences can be economic (e.g., having to pay a fee for violating the norm; E. Anderson, 2000 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ); reputational (e.g., being ostracized by other family members after getting divorced because they consider divorce unacceptable; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ); and emotional (e.g., feeling shame when arriving underdressed at a party; Etzioni, 2000 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Morris et al., 2015 ). External influence can take many forms, including

• Role modeling (e.g., celebrities in the media marketing compliance with a given norm as a sign of fashionable attractiveness; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Siu et al., 2012 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ).
• Social pressure (e.g., adolescent peers pressuring a friend to smoke), subtle encouragement (e.g., parents complimenting their sons for being brave and their daughters for being pretty), and active enforcement (e.g., teachers or religious leaders using violence to punish norm violators) that occur before or after one acts in accordance to or in violation of a norm ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ).
• Anticipation of (as opposed to actual) rewards and penalties, including the anticipation of social approval or disapproval (e.g., anticipation of gossip or the desire to be seen as a good marriage partner) and being accepted in or excluded from a given social group (e.g., the group of the “cool” kids at school or the intellectuals in a village; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ). The threat or anticipation of punishment can sometimes be enough (e.g., fear of violence for violating a norm; J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ).

Norms that create external obligations do not need to be aligned with individuals’ attitudes to motivate compliance. The term pluralistic ignorance refers to cases in which most people disagree with a norm but comply with it because they do not know the extent to which others also disapprove of it. Similar discrepancies between a group’s norm and group members’ individual attitudes have raised the interest of those who looked at new avenues for harm reduction; they suggest that interventions could uncover pluralistic ignorance by correcting people’s misperceptions of what others approve of, eventually reducing compliance with the harmful practice sustained by the norm ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Reid et al., 2010 ). However, when these interventions are not well designed they can inadvertently have negative consequences. Take, for instance, interventions that intend to increase awareness of a given harmful practice in the general population. With the purpose of shocking the audience, these interventions might unwittingly publicize the spread of a harmful norm (e.g., 80% of first-year students experience sexual violence in university campuses), ultimately generating a boomerang effect that would increase the very harmful behavior that these interventions are trying to reduce ( Dannals & Miller, 2017 ).

Norms becoming internal obligations

Compliance with social norms can be motivated by internal factors and preferences ( E. Anderson, 2000 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Siu et al., 2012 ). In this case, people recognize the validity of the norm in itself and comply with it because of the value they attach to it rather than because they anticipate consequences for complying with it or not ( Etzioni, 2000 ). The process through which people assimilate social norms to the point that they become internally driven motivations is often referred to as internalization ( Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Morris et al., 2015 ). When they are internalized, social norms shape an individual’s beliefs about how they should act ( E. Anderson, 2000 ). On this pathway, people follow the norm from then on, even when others around them do not, which is why some reviewers call these norms personal whereas others go so far as to call them moral . Several reviewers disagree that these moral and personal norms can be considered social norms, precisely because of their internal character ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ). People comply with a norm on this pathway because (a) they believe it embodies their values ( E. Anderson, 2000 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ); (b) compliance contributes to their self-understanding or identity ( E. Anderson, 2000 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ); or (c) a lack of alternatives impinges people’s capacity to envision change, inducing them to comply willingly with the norm because they view it as the only option available ( E. Anderson, 2000 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Siu et al., 2012 ), for example, women who wear high heels at work because they have never seen working women dressed differently (an example included in Dannals & Miller, 2017 ).

Some reviewers divide these three pathways (i.e., providing value-neutral information, creating external obligations, and becoming internal obligations) into separate categories. However, we suggest that they are, in practice, intersecting and nonexclusive. Although their separation (as the one we offered) can be helpful for conceptual clarity, these conceptions overlap and can be interlinked. For instance, norms can act on individuals as both external pressures and as shaping intrinsic motivations ( Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ). Etzioni (2000) calls for a view that combines stances, suggesting that norms are stronger when they exert both internal and external influences. Boytsun and colleagues (2011) echo this idea, suggesting that norms might be stronger when more community members agree with the norm. Social-norms theory would benefit from future research on these three distinct pathways, particularly on the ways in which norms vary in strength across them. Future research trajectories that aim to understand what influences the strength of social norms could build on earlier theoretical work carried out by Jackson (1966) on the return potential model (largely absent from the reviews). This model suggests that compliance with a norm does not necessarily result in approval: Overcompliance might generate negative reactions toward people who conform too strictly with the norm. Take the following example: A norm might exist that a worker should stay at the office until 5 p.m., so that noncompliers who leave at 3 p.m. are frowned upon. However, overcompliers (who, say, work until 8 p.m.) might also be frowned upon because they threaten the current equilibrium, pushing toward a normative model that might be difficult for other actors to follow ( Jackson, 1966 ). As researchers try to understand what influences patterns of norms emergence, change, and maintenance, they might find inspiration in Jackson’s model as an example of how other group-related factors (such as the extent to which the group cares about the norm) will influence its strength.

What types of mechanisms are described in the reviews for how social norms come about, evolve, and dissipate?

Three stages of a norm’s life cycle surface as common themes across the reviews: emergence, when a norm comes into being; maintenance, when an established norm continues to influence behavior and practices over time; and change and disappearance, when a norm ceases to exist or to exert influence. Although there is some concordance on these three themes, we found debates and unanswered questions with regard to the mechanisms by which social norms move across these three stages.

We also found diverging language and understanding of the key stages in the life cycle of a social norm. Reviewers describe the key stages in different ways and break them down into different substages. We report the different conceptions included within these three categories in Table 4 and discuss the points of consensus and divergence about these three life stages in greater detail below.

Stages in the Life Cycle of a Norm

Fifteen reviews have discussed theories of norm emergence, examining why and how an action or social practice becomes accepted as a norm in some populations ( E. Anderson, 2000 ; J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Burke & Young, 2011 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Popitz, 2017 ; Siu et al., 2012 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ; Young, 2015 ). A new norm can involve an action that was previously carried out by some people in the community but that was not considered a norm or a radically new way of acting and doing. Reviewers who discuss norm emergence conceptualize the transition from one substage to the next in different ways. Some theorize that behavior changes first and norms follow ( Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Popitz, 2017 ). For instance, when smoking in restaurants and bars was first outlawed in Norway, people stopped smoking in public spaces before they began to believe that smoking in public was socially unacceptable. Other reviewers suggest instead the opposite: that norms change first, and behaviors follow, as it happens, for instance, when a certain “tipping point” is reached (see below; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ). For example, there might be a norm that people should shake hands when they meet. At a time of an infectious epidemic, people might begin to prefer not doing so (as it would spread germs) and yet shake hands for fear of what others might say. These people would stop shaking hands only when they know that the norm has changed, that it is now acceptable not to shake hands. 1

Finally, reviewers have also considered the possibility of a process of mutual influence between the two levels: The more regular a behavior becomes in a population, the more individuals will believe there is a norm, and the more individuals believe that a norm exists, the more they will comply with it. As a result, the behavior becomes more common in the population ( Burke & Young, 2011 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ; Young, 2015 ). This last interpretation seems to us the most reasonable one. The norm might change first in a given core group of people in a society (e.g., university students believing buying plastic bottles is inappropriate) and then be followed by a new behavior in that group (e.g., university students only buying glass bottles). Then, as their new actions become public, others might also adopt them (e.g., students’ families and friends buying plastic bottles), eventually bringing about further normative change in the larger society.

Maintenance

Seven reviews have included a discussion of norm maintenance and continuity: why and how norms tend to persist for long periods of time, how they persist after losing their original relevance or significance ( Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Young, 2015 ), and what forces underlie these phenomena. Some discuss how norms persist because new group members learn and adopt them ( Dannals & Miller, 2017 ). Others have called attention to the fact that norms are transmitted over generations and thus can persist even when the original group of norm followers has disappeared ( Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Morris et al., 2015 ). Finally, another set of reviews ( Boytsun et al., 2011 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Morris et al., 2015 ) emphasizes norms’ relation to culture as the way to understand norm persistence. We thus note the recognition across reviews that norms persist and that norm continuity is a key feature of norms’ life cycle, although much of the literature does not address the processes and forces sustaining norms.

Change and dissipation

Reviews that examine when norms change tend to focus specifically on when norms shift naturally and quickly after long periods of stability. Three overlapping concepts are used to describe the process of quick normative change after long periods of persistence: tipping point , the specific moment when enough people hold attitudes against the existing norm and are ready to change; norm cascades , the process of norm change after a tipping point has been reached as more and more people start imitating those who are changing their behavior (enough people privately accept same-sex marriage that it becomes widely accepted in society; J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Burke & Young, 2011 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Young, 2015 ); and punctuated equilibria , an overall description of the evolution of norms, in which a norm persists for a long period of time until it suddenly changes or disappears once it reaches a tipping point followed by a norm cascade ( Burke & Young, 2011 ; Young, 2015 ). We found only two reviewers who discuss how norms can change while not completely disappearing: Norms can be altered ( Morris et al., 2015 ) or weakened ( Popitz, 2017 ), suggesting the need for further inquiry into gradual norm change.

We suggest that these three life stages have potential conceptual overlaps. Norm change and norm emergence , for instance, are tightly linked: An emerging norm can potentially interfere with one that existed before, changing the latter. Likewise, an emerging norm can strengthen an existing one, facilitating the maintenance of this latter norm.

Mechanisms underlying norm dynamics

In addition to looking at these three life stages, some reviews discuss how norms move across stages, identifying several mechanisms that can impel norms to emerge, evolve, and dissipate. We mention five in particular: correction of misperceptions, structural changes, legal reforms, role models, and power dynamics.

Correction of misperceptions

Several reviewers suggest that people’s normative beliefs can change as they receive accurate information about what others in their group do and approve of ( Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Morris et al., 2015 ), specifically when the group’s beliefs are wrong, as they overestimate people who engage in and approve of a given harmful norm. This strategy, often referred to as “correcting misperceptions,” was historically adopted by health interventions that aimed to change harmful social norms by providing accurate information on what others in a given group did and approved of ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Reid et al., 2010 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ). The reviews discussed different sources of information, including interpersonal communication ( Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ), mass media ( Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Reid et al., 2010 ), informational campaigns ( Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Reid et al., 2010 ), small focus-group interventions ( Dannals & Miller, 2017 ), observation of others ( Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ), and online platforms and video games ( Siu et al., 2012 ). Correcting misperceptions was, by far, the most commonly cited mechanism across the reviews. Two reviews also mentioned that strategies that increase the salience of positive norms can also work when there is no misperception to be corrected, that is, when people targeted by the intervention do not have any ideas of what others in their group are doing and approving of in relation to a given practice. Although studying this mechanism can yield important insights into how norms change, it needs to be integrated with other mechanisms explaining, for instance, how internalized norms can change.

Structural changes

Five reviews explore how variations in the social structure can influence the life trajectory of a norm. Background conditions, whether ecological ( Morris et al., 2015 ), historical ( Etzioni, 2000 ), or economic ( Burke & Young, 2011 ), can affect the existence and evolution of norms and normative systems. Morris and colleagues (2015) find that perceived external threats (such as natural disasters, epidemics, or war) can increase the resilience of a norm as well as people’s readiness to sanction deviant individuals. Etzioni (2000) argues that historical processes can affect what practices and values become normative at a given time in a given society to the extent that they give rise to “traditional” institutions and practices that demand compliance by virtue of their (real or perceived) traditional nature. Finally, changes in broader economic structures and institutions can influence people’s actions ( Vaitla et al., 2017 ) by changing the economic implications of violating or complying with a norm, that is, by altering the costs and benefits of compliance ( Burke & Young, 2011 ) or more generally by affecting the nature of social interactions and hierarchies. One reviewer ( Young, 2015 ), for instance, discusses how changes in both economic and social structures were necessary for feuding norms to dissipate. References to technological changes were absent from the reviewed literature, indicating important opportunities for future research.

Legal reforms

Two reviews suggest that legal reforms change social norms because they change what people believe to be approved or valued in their society (partly conflating this mechanism with the one on “correction of misperceptions”; Morris et al., 2015 ; Sunstein, 1996 ). However, as Sunstein (1996) notes, the coercive function of a law can act as an enforcement mechanism shaping new external obligations. Legal reforms are not always effective in changing the norm: Social norms and legal rules are not always aligned and can, in fact, have contradictory effects ( Mackie et al., 2015 ) or act as substitutes for one another ( Boytsun et al., 2011 ; Etzioni, 2000 ). At times, changing legal rules might not be effective in changing social norms ( Boytsun et al., 2011 ), as they might, for instance, force practices to go underground, in effect strengthening them by making them undetectable to the eyes of those would disapprove of it (which would eventually contribute to changing the norm). The scope exists for future research to explore under what circumstances legal reforms do change social norms, including in states that do not have strong control over their territory.

Role models

Nine reviewers highlight the role that influential individuals can play in inducing others to change their behavior, referring to them as leaders ( Mahmoud et al., 2014 ), norm entrepreneurs ( Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Young, 2015 ), opinion leaders ( Burke & Young, 2011 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ), social referents ( Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ), or role models ( Siu et al., 2012 ). These individuals exert social influence and persuasion through emotions, social attachment, personal connections, institutionally or socially conferred authority, or ease of personal identification. Examples of potentially influential individuals include authority figures such as religious leaders or village elders ( Etzioni, 2000 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ), individuals holding a special status in society ( Young, 2015 ), and peers or friends ( Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Siu et al., 2012 ). They can influence norm dynamics at all stages of a norm’s life cycle, from facilitating the diffusion, transmission, and spreading of norms to encouraging others to adopt a new norm or abandon an existing one, instigating norm cascades.

Power dynamics

Five reviews discuss how power relations can affect the emergence or dissipation of social norms, as happens when, for instance, the diffusion of a new norm in a group encounters active resistance from some powerful members ( Mackie et al., 2015 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Popitz, 2017 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ). Vaitla and colleagues (2017) argue that power is central to understanding norm compliance. They divide the literature into theories that favor “power explanations” (norms take hold in a top-down manner through formal institutions and powerholders) and those that favor “historical explanations” (norms emerge and change from the bottom up naturally through time). The study of how power dynamics affect norms requires understanding the ways in which groups and individuals can affect norm dynamics on the basis of the place they occupy in the social hierarchy ( Mackie et al., 2015 ; Popitz, 2017 ; Sunstein, 1996 ) and which specific individuals or groups have the ability to enforce or resist the adoption of a norm ( Popitz, 2017 ), as, for instance, in the case of a trade union dominated by people of a given race or gender who carry out exclusionary strategies to maintain their privileged position in the labor force. When powerful groups or individuals have an important role to play in the transformation of norms, collective action and social movements must offset established hierarchies and powerful groups ( Burke & Young, 2011 ) or involve them strategically in the movement for social improvement ( Mackie et al., 2015 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ).

Looking at these mechanisms synoptically allows greater critical awareness of the appropriateness of existing methods to shift harmful norms. The traditional social norms approach has largely focused on correcting misperceptions ( Berkowitz, 2004 ; Goldstein & Mortensen, 2012 ). These health interventions aim to increase people’s awareness that only a low percentage of people engages in a harmful practice. These interventions (common across U.S. university campuses) spread messages such as “At Stanford University, 9 students out of 10 do not drink alcohol on Saturday night” or “93% of men living in Paris agree that only cowards hit women.” However, such an approach works only when there is widespread (mostly tacit) support to changing the norm, and for this reason it has recently been criticized as a “narrow” approach to social norms change ( Bingenheimer, 2019 ). New approaches are now integrating strategies that work with core groups of populations to change their attitudes first and equip them with skills and knowledge to become agents of change in their community, with effective results in changing social norms by working with powerholders, role models, and policymakers ( Cislaghi & Heise, 2018 ; Pulerwitz et al., 2019 ). As practitioners and scholars collaborate further to bridge social-norms theory and practice, they might want to take into account the five mechanisms we identified and test how they can be integrated into effective programs.

What categories of agents are identified in the reviews as relevant in the study of social norms?

Several reviews mention the “reference group” (defined below) as an important element of social-norms theory ( Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ). Those that did not mention the concept explicitly still discuss how different social norms are created and reproduced within social groups, sustaining practices that are ritualized as symbols of group membership in ways that affect people’s self-understanding ( E. Anderson, 2000 ; J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Bell & Cox, 2015 ; Boytsun et al., 2011 ; Burke & Young, 2011 ; Cialdini & Trost, 1998 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Gibbs, 1965 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Popitz, 2017 ; Reid et al., 2010 ; Siu et al., 2012 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Young, 2015 ). In this section, we discuss the categories of groups that are relevant to understanding social norms, as revealed by our analysis.

In broad terms, reference group refers to the relevant others whose behavior and (dis)approval matter in sustaining the norm. Different social norms can have different reference groups (smoking might be a norm in a group of adolescents but not in the adolescents’ families), and the same norm can change across different groups (tipping is prescribed in the United States but proscribed in Japan; Popitz, 2017 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ).

Across the reviews, and even within reviews, we found several—sometimes conflicting—uses of the term reference group. The confusion is problematic because many methods for studying norms and norm change involve identifying the reference group related to a norm ( Mackie et al., 2015 ) but in practice might be measuring different groups of people. We identified three categories of people that are key to understanding how social norms are sustained: norm targets , the people who comply with the norm; norm drivers , the people who exert influence over the norm’s life cycle; and norm beneficiaries and victims , the people who are affected by the social norm, including when they are neither actors nor influencers (see Table 5 ).

Actor Categories Mentioned in the Reviews

Norm targets

At times, the term reference group is used to define the people to whom the norm applies ( Chung & Rimal, 2016 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Morris et al., 2015 ), the subjects, or—using a term coined by Coleman (1990) —the targets of the norm ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ). Take, for instance, a group of people living in a condominium. They hear domestic violence but decide not to intervene because there is a norm that “people in this neighborhood do not intervene in other family’s business.” The norm thus targets “people in this neighborhood.” Targets can be either members of specific groups or social categories (e.g., pedestrians, adolescent girls, chief executive officers). Two reviews mention that people can spontaneously make themselves targets of a norm, motivated by the desire to be associated with specific social categories ( E. Anderson, 2000 ; Bicchieri et al., 2011 ).

Norm drivers

At other times, the term reference group alludes to the group of people whose influence contributes to maintaining a given norm. Norm drivers would be, for instance, a group of adolescents exerting pressure on a peer to make him comply with a smoking norm ( Bicchieri et al., 2011 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ). These norm drivers do not necessarily comply with the norm themselves, but their opinions and actions matter in shaping people’s beliefs about what important others do and approve of. Several types of norm drivers exist (see Table 5 ). Enforcers actively encourage conformity with the existing status quo and contribute to maintaining a social norm in place. Leaders , by contrast, set norm change in motion ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Dannals & Miller, 2017 ; Etzioni, 2000 ; Lapinski & Rimal, 2005 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Morris et al., 2015 ; Sunstein, 1996 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ; Young, 2015 ), either because they are particularly influential ( Mackie et al., 2015 ) or because they are more willing to bear the costs of violating a norm ( Villatoro et al., 2010 ). Finally, norm followers are those who change their actions to comply with a new, emerging norm after norm leaders do or after a large proportion of the population do; they are key to moving a population into a new normative equilibrium in which a large majority complies with the new norm ( J. E. Anderson & Dunning, 2014 ; Mackie et al., 2015 ; Mahmoud et al., 2014 ; Vaitla et al., 2017 ; Villatoro et al., 2010 ).

Norm beneficiaries and victims

No reviews use the term reference group to refer to those who are affected by a norm—those who here we call norm beneficiaries and victims. We believe this third category to be important enough to deserve separate recognition. Norm beneficiaries are those who gain from the existing normative equilibrium. In the domestic-violence example offered earlier, a perpetrator of domestic violence benefits from a norm that “people in this neighborhood do not intervene in other family’s business.” Norm victims are those who lose from the existing normative equilibrium (as the victim of domestic violence above). The distinction between beneficiaries and victims is not always straightforward and will sometimes depend on the observer’s judgment. An adolescent might say they “benefit” from binge drinking in that they receive the approval of their peers, thus improving their sense of belonging, whereas a public-health policymaker might believe that that same adolescent is harmed by the norm.

Although for conceptual clarity we have presented three separate categories (norm targets, norm drivers, and norm beneficiaries/victims), in the real world they often overlap. Targets can influence others through their compliance as well as benefitting or being harmed by the norm. Take, for instance, the norm that prescribes punctuality in an organization. In this case, all three groups are the same: norm targets (who comply with the norm by arriving on time for meetings) are also norm drivers (as they disapprove or complain about violators) and norm beneficiaries (as by complying with the norm they save time and ensure that their work can be achieved more effectively). A norm that adolescent girls should get married soon after puberty offers instead an example in which only some of the three groups overlap. Norm targets are the adolescent girls, who must get married soon after puberty, but (especially when they do not want to marry young) they are also norm victims. Parents, community members, and traditional leaders could be both norm drivers and norm beneficiaries ( Vaitla et al., 2017 ).

We set out in this article to investigate how multidisciplinary reviews of social-norms theory organized this large body of literature. Four thematic areas of investigation emerged as we explored the articles that made it through our screening. The first related to the nature of social norms; here, we identified areas of debate and consensus, especially with regard to whether social norms are individual or collective constructs (see Tables 2 and ​ and3). 3 ). We suggested that these two approaches might be useful to different scholars and practitioners (e.g., the former to those working on behavioral change in global health and international development and the latter to historians and sociologists). The second area of investigation related to the pathways through which norms influence people’s actions. Areas of consensus and debate related to whether one or multiple pathways lead from norms to action, with our preference for the latter explanation. The pathways in the reviews naturally clustered into three categories: norms offering value-neutral information, norms creating external obligations, and norms becoming internal obligations. The third area related to the life stages of social norms: how they emerge, survive, and dissipate. We identified several substages across the reviews (see Table 4 ) and uncovered five key mechanisms that facilitate the movement of a norm across these life stages: correction of misperceptions, structural changes, legal reforms, role models, and power dynamics. We suggested that efforts to change social norms should look at how these five together interact and overlap rather than investing time and resources into only one of them.

Finally, the fourth and last area of investigation related to the groups relevant to the study of social norms. We discussed the role that norm targets, norm drivers, and norm beneficiaries/victims have to play. Even though the last of these categories was not found in the reviews, we argued for its inclusion in further work on social norms. Overall, we also found that reviews of the social-norms literature could benefit from a closer engagement with social theory and related literature in the social sciences. Future cross-disciplinary reviews of social-norms theory might cover bordering theoretical space, engaging with the relation between norms theory and, for instance, theories looking at social capital ( Lin, Cook, & Burt, 2001 ), social dominance ( Sidanius & Pratto, 2001 ), and intersectional inequalities based on gender, class, or race ( Samuels & Ross-Sheriff, 2008 ). Very few of the reviews included in this study tried to accomplish such a task. Popitz (2017) is one exception, as his work looked at how norms intersect with power relations in ways that sustain or undermine a given social order. Etzioni (2000) is the only other exception; his work partly looks at how acculturation and involvement in social or religious movements can change social norms.

From the current study, two important lines of enquiry emerge as trajectories for future research. First, future research could investigate how the different mechanisms underlying social norms dynamics operate at different stages in the life of a norm. Future theoretical and empirical studies could map out what specific mechanisms are relevant to particular stages and substages in the life cycle of a norm. Here, engagement with theories of diffusion ( Cislaghi et al., 2019 ), acculturation ( Ward & Geeraert, 2016 ), and structural ritualization ( Knottnerus, 1997 ) might be particularly fruitful. Second, future research could increase our understanding of the relations and transitions between the three normative pathways we identified (providing information, creating external obligations, and becoming internal obligations). Research questions along this line of inquiry would include how and when norms are internalized, how and when changes in individuals’ preferences weaken social norms, and how people navigate conflicting influences from different normative pathways. Here, action identification theory ( Vallacher & Wegner, 2011 ) and social identity theory ( Hogg, 2016 ) might assist a researcher looking at the further integration of social norms and social theory. As empirical and theoretical work on social norms advances into its next phase of investigation, we hope for greater cross-disciplinary work to extend and improve our understanding of the rules that bind us, expanding what may be one of the oldest research trajectories in the history of human thought.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Leah Kenny and Susan Igras for reviewing and commenting on a prepublication draft of the manuscript.

1. We are grateful for this example to Molly Melching of the nongovernmental organization Tostan, who, building on their observations during the recent Ebola epidemics in West Africa, uses this example in their training program.

Action Editor: Laura A. King served as action editor for this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.