Survey links social norms and support to farmers’ water-scarcity adaptation

Perceived incentive support and social norms were the strongest positive statistical predictors of farmers’ reported adaptation to water scarcity in a survey of irrigated farmers in Bilavar district, Kermanshah province, Iran. An expanded version of the Norm Activation Model explained 51% of the variation in adaptive behavior, compared with 24% for the basic model. The study identifies associations rather than proving that changing support, community expectations or personal attitudes would cause farmers to adopt different practices.

Researchers Sahra Asadi and Amirhossein Alibaygi collected questionnaire data from irrigated farmers and analyzed the proposed relationships using partial least squares structural equation modeling, known as PLS-SEM. The basic Norm Activation Model was extended to include social norms and perceived incentive support alongside personal norms and other measured factors. The objective was to assess how well this expanded model accounted for differences in farmers’ reported responses to water scarcity within the surveyed agricultural setting.

The analysis found significant direct associations between personal norms, social norms, perceived incentive support and adaptive behavior, with each relationship reported at p < 0.01. Perceived incentive support had the largest positive path coefficient for adaptive behavior, at β = 0.571, followed by social norms at β = 0.468. These coefficients quantify the strength of the modeled associations; they do not establish that either factor independently produced changes in farming behavior. Two additional constructs were negatively and significantly associated with adaptive behavior: denial of responsibility and perceived ability.

Personal norms were also significantly associated with adaptive behavior, while four factors significantly influenced personal norms in the model: awareness of consequences, awareness of needs, ascription of responsibility and outcome efficacy. Together, the results show that the statistical relationships linked to farmers’ adaptation involved personal attitudes, community expectations and perceived support. The enhanced model’s greater explanatory power does not mean that a particular policy would necessarily improve outcomes. It indicates that, among the measured variables and within this sample, the broader set of factors accounted for more of the observed variation than the basic model alone.

The findings suggest that the design of extension policies and support programs for agricultural water scarcity may benefit from considering several dimensions at once rather than relying solely on one type of information. The authors specifically point to strengthening social norms and improving farmers’ access to and perception of support mechanisms. However, the evidence comes from questionnaire responses in one district, and the supplied study abstract does not report the sample size or establish how broadly the results apply to farmers elsewhere in Iran or under different water-scarcity conditions. The results should therefore be read as a model-based account of associations in the studied population, not as direct evidence of intervention effectiveness.

Subject of Research: Survey analysis of social norms, perceived incentive support and farmers’ adaptation to water scarcity in Kermanshah province, Iran

Article Title: The power of social norms and perceived incentive support in shaping farmers’ adaptive behavior to water scarcity

Article References: Asadi, S., & Alibaygi, A. (2026). The power of social norms and perceived incentive support in shaping farmers’ adaptive behavior to water scarcity. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-05026-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-05026-3

Keywords: water scarcity, irrigated farmers, social norms, incentive support, adaptive behavior, Norm Activation Model, structural equation modeling, agriculture, Kermanshah province, Iran, power, social