Social norms
Social norms are the unwritten rules and behaviors that a group or society commonly accepts as normal. These norms can vary significantly across different cultures and social settings, encompassing behaviors from polite greetings, like saying "please" and "thank you," to more serious matters, such as societal views against theft or violence. While not formal laws, social norms play a crucial role in regulating individual behavior, often leading to conformity as people seek acceptance within their social groups. Those who deviate from these norms may face ostracism or criticism, reinforcing the social structure. Variations of social norms include descriptive norms, which reflect common behaviors, and injunctive norms, which represent societal expectations of how individuals should behave. Additionally, norms can evolve over time; for instance, shifts in cultural attitudes have led to the emergence of new norms that challenge previous beliefs, such as greater acceptance of diversity and gender equality. The study of social norms also intersects with economics and game theory, exploring the motivations behind conformity and deviation through analytical models. Understanding social norms can provide insight into the complexities of human interaction and the social fabric that binds communities together.
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Social norms
Social norms are actions or beliefs commonly accepted as normal behaviors by a group or society. These accepted behaviors can be applied to large, collective groups associated with a particular culture or society or to smaller social groups, such as artists, computer programmers, college students, religious groups, or motorcycle clubs. Overall, a social norm is established through a common behavior and a group’s approval of that behavior.
Overview
Social norms are not formally imposed laws; instead, they are common behaviors that are accepted by a social group or culture. Individuals who stray beyond these social norms can be ostracized or reprimanded by the group, suggesting that social norms are a psychological tool that helps others exercise some level of control over another’s behaviors and social practices and helps establish a hierarchy for maintaining social order and organizing social groups within respective cultures. Some social norms are acceptable in multiple cultures and social settings, but others vary from culture to culture and among different social settings. Within a group, norms also vary depending on the setting; for example, laughter that is normal and acceptable in some contexts could be seen as highly inappropriate at a funeral.
Because human beings are social in nature, social norms allow individuals in a culture or social group an opportunity to observe the accepted behaviors of a group and emulate those behaviors in order to be accepted by the group. Adherence to a social norm is known as conformity; most people tend to conform to social norms in most situations. Social norms stem from human interaction and are, therefore, typically unexpected and unplanned; however, social norms are also defined by their observable recurrence.
There are various ways of explaining and describing social norms and how they work. One categorization scheme developed by researcher Robert Cialdini distinguishes between descriptive norms, which involve following the behaviors of others, and injunctive norms, which involve following the way others believe one should behave. Another distinction can be made between prescriptive and proscriptive norms. The former are behaviors that society encourages, such as holding the door for another person, and are often connected to politeness. Proscriptive norms are behaviors that society discourages, and may range from generally harmless actions seen as odd, such as talking to oneself in public, to violent and harmful actions such as theft and murder. Extreme examples of proscriptive social norms, like murder, typically overlap with formal laws and regulations.
Social norms have also been further defined in relation to the similar concepts of moral norms and legal norms, although some norms span all three categories. Social norms can range from something as simple as saying “please” and “thank you” to society’s non-acceptance of domestic abuse and stealing. Social norms also can influence people’s economic, social welfare, and political beliefs through peer pressure.
In the field of philosophy, scholars have suggested while social norms can be seen as an organizational construct for society, they can also be seen as constraining or restricting a person’s individuality. Individuals who go against these social norms are often considered to be deviant or taboo. These individuals are often ostracized from the main social group, which reinforces behavior by establishing a hierarchy of outsiders and insiders. However, many of these individuals will seek out others who accept their behaviors and form their own social group and subculture or counterculture based on that behavior and others’ acceptance of it.
Norms can also change over time as society’s acceptance of certain behaviors grows and new norms are established while old ones are discarded. This can effectively influence the larger culture to accept what was once perceived as socially unacceptable. Shifting cultural beliefs of the twentieth century resulted in new social norms, including an intolerance of overt racism in public discourse, greater acceptance of women in the workforce, and acceptance of interracial marriage.
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, researchers increasingly examined social norms in terms of logic and theory. The field of economics viewed the decision to conform to or break a social norm in terms of cost-benefit analysis, centered on the concept of the return potential model. It suggests that conformist or deviant behavior can be predicted mathematically. Other researchers have adapted game theory to the study of social norms.
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