Crystal Smit

General Discussion 6 133 norms). It may be that these children were more likely to adjust their behavior to the intervention message (i.e., drink more water) because it was congruent with the norm that they perceived beforehand. This reasoning is consistent with the contextual congruence model, which suggests that higher levels of agreement between values, beliefs, and behaviors in the social environments facilitate the internalization process (Spera & Matto, 2007). Second, the intervention was also more effective in children who did not initially perceive that their classmates thought they should drink water (i.e., lower injunctive norms). Research showed that higher levels of injunctive norms can be perceived as coercive pressure from others to perform the behavior (Cialdini et al., 1991), which can evoke resistance to the desired behavior. It may be that children who initially felt pressure from their classmates were less likely to adapt their behavior when exposed to the intervention message and drinking norms conveyed by the influence agents. Chapter 5 showed that the intervention indeed increased the children’s perceived injunctive norms. Interestingly, a similar study conducted in Aruba found an opposite moderating effect for perceived injunctive norms (Franken et al., 2018). In this study the social network intervention was more effective for children who initially thought their peers thought they should drink water (i.e., higher injunctive norms). A possible explanation lies in cross-cultural differences. Although the Dutch culture has many similarities to that of Aruba, Arubans appear to have more collectivistic values, by feeling interdependent and connected with their social environment, than the Dutch, who are more individualistic and refer to themselves as autonomous and separate entities in their social environments (Meijering & Lager, 2014; Merz, Ozeke-Kocabas, Oort, & Schuengel, 2009). Unlike in the Netherlands, the children in Aruba who initially perceived peer pressure were more inclined to adapt their behavior because they felt the need to be part of the social group. This reasoning is consistent with research showing that individuals are susceptible to the influence of individuals with whom they experience shared group membership (Cruwys et al., 2012). Thus, it appears that in more connected social communities, the Share H 2 O intervention is effective among children who perceive higher levels of