Gender-based violence (GBV) primary prevention programs seek to facilitate change by addressing the underlying causes and drivers of violence against women and girls at a population level. Social norms are contextually and socially derived collective expectations of appropriate behaviours. Harmful social norms that sustain GBV include women’s sexual purity, protecting family honour over women’s safety, and men’s authority to discipline women and children.

This paper describes the formative research and psychometric testing of the Social Norms and Beliefs about Gender Based Violence (GBV) Scale. The Scale is designed to measure change over time in harmful social norms and personal beliefs associated with violence against women and girls among men and women community members in low resource and complex humanitarian settings.