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There are some behaviors that society wants people to avoid. In most cases where you want to stop a behavior you have to be careful to not make it seem normal, with "It's bad but common" being the second worst message you can send after "It's good and common" in terms of trying to get people to stop. A social psychologist will say this is due to the power of norms and talk about the famous Petrified Forest National Park experiment. An economist will talk about how we can see punishments for behaviors better than their commission in many disapproved behaviors and so making them seem common makes it seem like the odds of getting caught are lower.

But in any event in things like drug use, sexual harassment, or bribery we have pretty clear evidence of campaigns against these behaviors being counter productive with, e.g., D.A.R.E actually increasing drug use among high schoolers. So I'd just like anybody looking to conduct a DEI campaign to be careful of this effect.



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