Professor Norton's research can be grouped into two broad areas. First, he explores the effects of social norms on people’s attitudes and behavior, addressing the key role that social factors play in shaping the preferences of individuals. This work has a particular focus on the norm of political correctness, demonstrating the impact of this norm in domains ranging from social interaction to personnel selection to the effectiveness of marketing appeals.

In the domain of behavioral economics, Professor Norton's research investigates the psychology of investment: How investing time, labor, and money impacts how people come to value things, from products to people. One project, for example, demonstrates that people value products far beyond their market price when they assemble those products themselves, the “IKEA effect.”