Examining the Effect of Crime Prevention Signage Through Social Normative Theory and Attitude Structures Bruce Biggs and Meghan E. Norris Results  Neighborhood Watch is a community based initiative to help community members feel safe and prevent crime.  Although there are different styles of neighborhood watch signs, the “Warning” sign in Figure 1a is very commonly seen in the USA.  It is well recognized that messages which activate social norms can effectively produce positive perceptions and socially beneficial behavior.  Cialdini (2003) defines two types of social norms, descriptive and injunctive, which motivate human behavior in distinct ways.  Descriptive norms refer to people’s perceptions of behaviors that are typically performed in a specific situation.  Injunctive norms refer to people’s perceptions of approved or disapproved behaviors in a specific situation.  When messages focus on descriptive norms it may result in a reversal or “backfire” effect that unintentionally encourages the undesired behavior or conveys the opposite of the desired message.  A message that a neighborhood has a “Neighborhood Watch” is intended to communicate the injunctive normative message that crime is not approved of in that area. This is the basic assumption of the widely used “Neighborhood Watch” sign.  Recent studies by Schultz and Tabanico (2009a, 2009b) suggest that these signs produce the backfire effect of conveying the descriptive message that “crime happens here,” thereby increasing participant fear of crime and decreasing participant estimates of community quality. The current research is a first step to explore initial questions generated by Schultz’ and Tabanico’s research: 1.Do fear of crime and perceptions of community quality vary depending on neighborhood watch signs?  In addition, research demonstrates that attitudes can be based more in affective, cognitive or global structures (Crites, Petty, & Fabrigar, 1994). This literature does not appear to have been applied to crime prevention. It is useful to know the nature of attitude base for future persuasive content. 2. Do affective, cognitive, or global attitude bases of neighborhood attitudes vary depending on the nature of the neighborhood watch sign present? A one-way MANOVA was conducted to test for differences in both fear of crime and community quality depending on the neighborhood watch sign viewed.  There was a significant multivariate effect for sign condition: Wilks’ Lambda =.87, F(4, 188) = 3.41, p =.01. Fear of Crime:  The test of between-subjects effects showed a marginal effect of sign condition on fear of crime, F(2, 95) = 2.94, p =.06. As hypothesized, those in the “warning” condition had higher levels of fear (indicated by a lower number) than those in the “united” and control conditions. Figure 3. Effect of sign condition on fear of crime. Bars represent mean level of item endorsement, and lines represent 95% confidence intervals. Community Quality:  The test of between-subjects effects showed a significant effect of sign condition on perceptions of community quality, F(2, 95) = 5.64, p =.005. Those who saw the “united” sign reported the highest perceptions of community quality, whereas those who saw the “warning” sign reported the lowest. Figure 4. Effect of sign condition perceptions of community quality. Bars represent mean level of aggregate item endorsement, and lines represent 95% confidence intervals. Attitudinal Bases  Some attitudes have been shown to vary in the degree to which they are based on affect or cognition (Crites et al., 1994).  It was hypothesized that because the neighborhood watch signs were present at attitude formation, that perhaps the signs would influence the degree to which attitudes toward the neighborhood were more affectively or cognitively based.  Attitudinal bases were created by using affective, cognitive, and global attitude measures (Crites et al., 1994). The absolute value of the difference between each base and the global attitude score was calculated. These difference scores were treated as dependent variables in a MANOVA, with sign condition as the independent variable. No significant differences were found.  Both perception of crime and community quality were rated on Likert scales ranging from 0 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).  Measures created by Crites et al. (1994) were used to assess affective, cognitive and global attitude structures with respect to attitudes towards the neighborhood. The items consist of words describing the attitude object in the respective structures and are rated on a 0 (Not at All) to 7 (Definitely) scale. Figures 1a and 1b: Neighborhood watch signs employed in the current research. What comes to mind when you see these signs? Methods Participants: 100 people were recruited through Mturk for participation in this study. Design: This study used a one-way 3 sign condition (“Neighborhood Watch” vs “United to Make Our Neighborhood Safer” vs. No sign present control) between-subjects design. The sign was posted in a photo of the identical mid-level socio-economic status neighborhood environment in each condition. No Sign Control Condition United Sign Condition Warning Sign Condition Figures 2a, 2b, and 2c: Experimental stimuli. Procedure:  This research was conducted online via the Purdue Qualtrics platform linked to the Mechanical Turk survey service.  Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three sign conditions. Participants were given a cover story that the study concerned real estate sales techniques.  Participants were shown their respective target photo, and then asked a series of questions.  Perception of fear of crime was measured by one global item, “People in this neighborhood can walk around at night without fear of being attacked or bothered by strangers”. Historically, much of the research on fear of crime has used this single item measure, which originates with the National Crime Victim Survey (NCVS) (Schultz & Tobanico, 2009a, 2009b; Franklin, Franklin & Fearn, 2008).  Perception of community quality was measured by 4 items designed by Schultz and Tabanico (2009a). These were averaged to form an index of perception of community quality. (1)“If I was a qualified buyer, I would be interested in purchasing a home in this community, (2) “This is a good neighborhood to raise a family, (3) “Purchasing a home in this community would be a good investment” and (4) “This appears to be a quiet community”. Introduction Discussion  The results of this study are consistent with the findings of previous research (Schultz & Tobanico, 2009a, 2009b)., where the presence of a “Neighborhood Watch” sign produces the undesired effect of increasing participant fear of crime and decreasing participant perception of community quality. However, this effect is attenuated when the neighborhood watch sign is not focused on the criminal behavior but rather community connectedness.  This study takes a small initial step toward informing crime prevention practice by suggesting that the alternative “United to Make Our Neighborhood Safer” sign is preferable to the traditional “Neighborhood Watch” sign in conveying the intended normative messages. As was found here, the use of alternative signage may be particularly important if the desired message is intended to increase the positive assessment of community quality.  Although no significant differences were found between attitudinal bases, the sample size was relatively small. It would be inappropriate to speculate on trends that appeared in the data, but it would be prudent to examine the nature of attitude base in larger future studies. This will further inform the most desirable signage design, and may give insights as to how best to approach attitude change in situations where neighborhoods have negative reputations.  Ongoing research is exploring interactive effects between apparent neighborhood SES and the nature of neighborhood watch signs. It could be that specific signs are most effective at limiting fear of crime and preventing crime depending on the context.