"Everyone Does It": When the Crowd Becomes the Standard

You already know you want to change. You have your reasons, perhaps written down, perhaps just a persistent uncomfortable feeling. Then you look around. Your colleague does the same thing. Your friends do more of it. A survey says half the country does it. And the thought settles in: “Everyone does it. Maybe I’m overreacting.”

The comfort is immediate. If the behavior is normal, perhaps the problem is your standards, not the behavior. But normality was never the question you asked yourself when you decided to change.

How the crowd replaces the compass

The sociologists Sykes and Matza described a set of techniques people use to make rule-breaking feel acceptable. One of them is “denial of injury”: the idea that if no one is obviously harmed, the act does not really count. Another is the implicit appeal to the group: if everyone is doing it, it cannot be wrong [6]. These were originally about delinquency, but the logic applies to habits: the crowd becomes a reference point that displaces a personal one.

Research on social norms distinguishes two types. Descriptive norms are what people actually do. Injunctive norms are what people approve of. In a series of five field experiments on littering, researchers showed that the two can pull in different directions: people littered more in an already-littered environment (descriptive norm) but less when reminded that littering is disapproved of (injunctive norm) [1].

The thought “everyone does it” appeals to the descriptive norm. It does not ask whether anyone approves, including you.

A fictional example

The following is an illustrative example, not a real person’s story.

Ben decided a month ago to stop scrolling through his phone for the first hour of every morning. He noticed it made him groggy, late and anxious before he had even started his day.

At a friend’s house, he sees the friend pick up his phone in bed, scroll through news and social media, and eventually get up forty minutes later. At lunch the next day, two colleagues joke about their own morning screen time. The thought forms: “Everyone does this. I was being dramatic.”

• What he thinks: “This is just what modern life is. I’m the weird one for fighting it.”
• What he feels: Relief, and a slight irritation at his past self for making such a fuss.
• What he does: Starts scrolling in bed again the next morning, and by the weekend his alarm is back to being a snooze-and-scroll session.

Ben’s observation is probably accurate: many people scroll first thing in the morning. But his decision was not based on what other people do. It was based on the fact that he felt worse on days he scrolled and better on days he did not. The crowd did not change that.

What the research on norms and behavior shows

Social norms shape behavior substantially. A meta-analysis of 204 experimental tests found that changing norms had a significant effect on health-related behavior, though the size varied across domains [2]. A review of norm-based interventions concluded that norms influence behavior through two main routes: people use others’ behavior as information about what is effective or appropriate, and they conform to gain social approval or avoid disapproval [5].

In the specific case of drinking, a meta-analysis of 23 studies found that perceived descriptive norms, how much students believed their peers drank, consistently predicted personal alcohol consumption [4]. A longitudinal study of 818 college students showed that perceived norms at one time point predicted drinking at the next, even after controlling for earlier drinking [3].

The trouble is that these perceived norms are often wrong. The same research on college drinking consistently finds that students overestimate how much their peers drink. Correcting these misperceptions, telling students what their peers actually consume, is the basis of social norms interventions, which have shown some success in reducing heavy drinking [5].

So two things are true at once: what you believe other people do has a real effect on what you do, and what you believe other people do is often inaccurate.

Why “everyone does it” is the wrong comparison

Even if everyone genuinely does it, the logic has a gap. The question you asked yourself was not “Is this normal?” It was something more specific:

• “Does this match the life I want?”
• “Am I comfortable with the cost?”
• “How do I feel on days I do this versus days I don’t?”

None of those questions are answered by the behavior of other people. Other people are not paying your costs. They may not even notice them.

Questions to examine the thought

When “everyone does it” shows up, try shifting the comparison back:

1. When I decided to change, what was I comparing the habit to?
2. Has anything about those reasons changed, or has only my comparison group changed?
3. If I found out that most people did not do this, would I feel more motivated to stop? If so, the decision was mine all along, not the crowd’s.
4. What would I say to a friend who told me they were giving up a goal because other people had not?

Using norms honestly

Norms are not always misleading. If you discover that your perception of what is normal is wrong, and that most people in your situation do less of the thing you are trying to change, that is genuinely useful information. It means the behavior is not as inevitable as it felt.

But the most stable foundation for change is not “other people don’t do this” but “this is what I want.” A meta-analysis of self-determination theory in health contexts found that autonomous motivation, acting because you value the outcome, predicted better health behaviors and outcomes than motivation driven by external comparison or pressure [6].

Ben’s question is not whether other people scroll in the morning. It is whether he wants to be late, groggy and anxious. The crowd cannot answer that.

For a related thought that uses comparison in the opposite direction, see “it’s not that bad” and the problem with measuring down. For what happens when you want to change but part of you resists, see why wanting to quit does not mean wanting every part of quitting.

When to get more support. If you have decided to change and find yourself repeatedly unable to act on that decision, regardless of what other people do, it may help to talk to someone. A therapist can help you work out whether the difficulty is motivational, practical or something else entirely. If the habit is affecting your health or relationships, start with your GP. If you are in distress, contact a crisis line: in the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.