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Article History

Received: 13 November 2024

Accepted: 17 February 2026

First Online: 1 June 2026

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Review Committee of the School of Psychology, Sichuan Normal University, on May 18, 2023. The committee did not assign a formal approval number to this study. The scope of the approval covered an experimental study involving adult university students, including exposure to social norm information, questionnaire-based measures, and the observation and recording of participants’ actual behaviors in a naturalistic setting. All procedures involving human participants were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

: This study was conducted between May and July 2023. Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to participation. In accordance with the approval granted by the ethics committee, oral informed consent was obtained from all adult participants immediately before data collection due to the anonymous and minimal-risk nature of the study. Before participation, trained researchers verbally explained a standardized informed consent script approved by the ethics committee. Participation proceeded only after participants verbally confirmed their consent, which constituted the procedural record of informed consent. Participants were informed about the purpose and procedures of the study, the voluntary nature of participation, their right to withdraw at any time without penalty, and the anonymous and confidential handling of their data. After data collection, participants were debriefed regarding the true purpose of the study. All data were collected anonymously and used solely for academic research purposes.