Norm Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Norm Emergence, Persistence, and Change

Why social norms may fail us when we need them most

Where social norms are the 'glue' guiding behavior, people hardly think of their behavior as an act of norm compliance. They do consciously look for social norms in situations of environmental or social uncertainty, because i) norms provide behavioral cues that reduce uncertainty and ii) the uncertainty is partially induced by the lack or instability of social norms themselves-creating the (flawed) perception that social norms often fail us when we need them most. We discuss several state-of-the-art conceptualizations of social norms-abstract and specific norms, the social norms life cycle, and social norms in changing contexts-to highlight where and how uncertainty comes into play within each of these approaches, and consequently where the success of social norms might be hindered.

Norm strength and norm stability

In our review, we explore two different flavors of social norms: strength and stability. These two fundamental features are crucial for understanding norm change and designing effective interventions. Strong norms, which significantly influence behavior and are widely adopted, and stable norms, which endure over time, are essential for group coordination and addressing collective challenges. Using game theory, we discuss what constitutes norms' strength, drawing on Bicchieri's framework and tightness-looseness theory. Using the game-theoretic notion of evolutionary stable states, we also differentiate between strength and stability, listing possible enforcement mechanisms like punishment, gossip, and perceived legitimacy. Here we argue that stability is not a mere consequence of strength but a different feature of norms that is separate but linked. We conclude by highlighting the need for a theoretical definition of stability, incorporating various mechanisms from the literature to provide a robust theoretical framework for future research on social norms.

Changing norms of trust

Trust strengthens people's confidence in a stable society and their willingness to perform pro-social behaviors, such as getting vaccinated or protecting a livable climate and environment. This review proposes a framework of how norms of trust change during times of uncertainty and collective threat. Norms of trust influence expectations toward another's actual or acceptable behavior in interdependent contexts and thus inform an individual's level of trust. These expectations are based on experienced behavior, norm-based beliefs about the counterparty, and/or projections about what oneself would do in a given situation. A match or mismatch between expectations and the experienced behavior of others (both individuals and institutions) during interactions in new environments either affirm or weaken norms of trust.

A sender-message-receiver (SMeR) framework for communicating persuasive social norms - The case of climate change mitigation behavioral change

This review delves into the nuanced boundary conditions of social norms in fostering behavior change within the realm of climate action. Current research is examined within a "Sender - Message - Receiver (SMeR)" framework, which investigates factors such as group identification and group size that influence the effectiveness of social norms. Furthermore, it explores how cultural context, personal norms, emotions, and ambiguity shape individuals' responses to social norms-based messages. By illuminating these boundary conditions, the review provides insights into the complexities of social normative influence and offers guidance for designing more effective intervention techniques to promote behavioral change. Understanding these nuances is crucial for developing targeted strategies that resonate with diverse audiences and facilitate meaningful shifts toward a more environmentally sustainable future.

The Power and Pitfalls of Social Norms

Social norms have long been considered across the social and behavioral sciences for their effects on human behavior. This review focuses on norms that explicitly or implicitly convey socially shared views about what people should or should not do. Such injunctive norms can be powerful influences on behavior through internalization or through formal or informal enforcement. They can underpin interventions to shape people's behavior through conformity but can also be drawn upon by individuals to question social practices. However, norms also have pitfalls and may fail to affect behavior as intended: They can pose a threat to the individual's self (autonomy, morality, values), compromise motives and social meanings (intrinsic motivation, trust, sincerity), or be egocentrically reconstrued (through biased perceptions and selective social/temporal referents). Depending on one's stance on an issue, such pitfalls may also be turned into powers to inoculate against undesirable norms or to advance social change.

Majority rule: Do minorities live in 'tighter' social worlds?

Exploring social norms through a diversity perspective, this review examines whether minorities live in 'tighter' worlds, wherein they are subject to stricter rules and punishments. Integrating research from psychology, economics, and organizational behavior, we first examine whether minorities are more likely to have tightness imposed on them-i.e., receive more monitoring and harsher penalties in response to norm violations, compared to their majority counterparts. Turning to the subjective experience of minority group members, we explore whether minorities are calibrated to these penalties and experience greater lived tightness-the feeling of being chronically surveilled, judged harshly, and fearing excessive punishment for wrongdoing. We suggest that both imposed and lived tightness contributes to power inequalities and patterns of segregation. This framework helps to organize disparate research streams investigating minorities' experience of social norms, and highlights unanswered questions about when, and why, minority group members feel more constrained by social rules, as well as the consequences of these experiences for their economic and psychological well-being.

Bottom-up influences on social norms: How observers' responses to transgressions drive norm maintenance versus change

Human behavior is heavily influenced by social norms. But when and how do norms persist or change? Complementing work on the role of top-down factors in the enforcement of normative behavior (e.g., sanctioning systems, organizational culture, formal leadership, corrective actions), I introduce a model of bottom-up influences on norm development. I argue that the trajectories of social norms are shaped by behavioral responses of observers to emergent norm violations. Research on such responses can be categorized in three broad clusters that have distinct implications for norm development. Oppositional responses to norm violations (punishment, confrontation, gossip, whistleblowing, derogation, social exclusion, emotional condemnation) discourage future transgressions, thereby contributing to norm maintenance. Acquiescent responses (avoidance, tolerance) leave room for future violations, thereby contributing to norm erosion. Supportive responses (emulation, endorsement) encourage future deviance and facilitate the spreading of counternormative behavior, thereby catalyzing norm change. By linking micro-level norm violations to macro-level normative systems, this approach illuminates how norms are dynamically negotiated through social interaction.

Proximate and ultimate drivers of norms and norm change

We describe a formal model of norm psychology that can be applied to better understand norm change. The model integrates several proximate drivers of normative behavior: beliefs and preferences about a) material payoffs, b) personal norms, c) peer disapproval, d) conformity, and e) authority compliance. Additionally, we review interdisciplinary research on ultimate foundations of these proximate drivers of normative behavior. Finally, we discuss opportunities for integration between the proposed formal framework and several psychological sub-fields.

Integrating social learning and network formation for social tipping towards a sustainable future

Numerous psychological biases shape how we respond to observing others conforming to or diverging from social norms. Depending on our social networks, we may be more influenced by societal majorities, such as the widespread consumption of meat or frequent air travel, or by the sustainable lifestyles of our closest friends. The evolution of social norms is shaped by personal preferences, values, beliefs, and the structure of social networks. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for promoting a cultural shift towards sustainability, yet our grasp of how normative transformations occur remains limited. In this paper, we simulate an agent-based model in which agents choose between maintaining the status quo or adopting an alternative, engaging in a coordination game. Our model illustrates that interventions aimed at changing individual preferences may fail if the population is structured in polarised networks, where agents with similar preferences cluster together and primarily interact within their groups. These echo chambers limit the effectiveness of preference-based interventions. However, we show that a subsequent intervention that increases the salience of behaviours from agents with dissimilar preferences can successfully tip the population from a status quo equilibrium to an alternative norm equilibrium. This paper outlines the challenges policymakers face in designing interventions for catalysing positive social norm changes. We argue for a reevaluation of current methodologies for modelling and empirically investigating norm change. Our primary recommendation for future research is a more comprehensive incorporation of the myriad ways individuals respond to social information and network formation.

Mathematical frameworks for the analysis of norms

Research into society's informal rules of conduct, or norms, has recently experienced a surge, extending across multiple academic disciplines. Despite this growth, the theoretical modeling of norms often remains siloed within specific paradigms, as different disciplines tend to favor certain frameworks over others, thereby hindering the spread of innovative ideas. This article breaks through disciplinary barriers to explore recent advancements in the mathematical study of norms. It specifically focuses on cutting-edge theoretical research, structuring the discussion around four general frameworks: game theory, evolutionary game theory, agent-based modeling, and multi-agent reinforcement learning.

Norm learning, teaching, and change

We present a broad notion of norms that can accommodate many of its interdisciplinary variants and offers a framework to ask questions about norm change. Rather than examining community norm change, we focus on changes in the individual's norm representations. These representations can be characterized by six properties (including as context specificity, deontic force, prevalence), and we examine which of the properties change as a result of norm learning and norm teaching. We first review research insights into norm learning based on observation, imitation, and various forms of inference. Then we examine norm learning that results from teaching, specifically teaching by modeling and demonstration, communication and instruction, and evaluative feedback. We finally speculate about how different kinds of norm change in a given community foster different kinds of norm learning in the individual community member.

Co-Existence Patterns of Social Norms and Positive Defending Intention Among Adolescents as School Bullying Bystanders

School bullying occurs frequently in primary and secondary schools, which is a global problem and it often brings serious physical and mental harm to the victims. When school bullying occurs, there may be a large number of bystanders in addition to the bullies and victims. What actions bystanders take affects the progress of school bullying. Relevant studies indicate that social norms including how peers around them react (descriptive norms) and how important adults such as teachers and parents demand (injunctive norms) play important roles in bystanders' action-taking, but limited studies have considered individual differences. Therefore, this study used a person-centered approach to explore the co-existence patterns of social norms and bystanders' defending intention to further understand their relations. We surveyed 1,384 junior high school students in China by self-report questionnaires, and they were asked to assess their defending intention when witnessing school bullying events under different contexts of social norms. Through latent profiles analysis, five co-existing patterns were identified: no norms-no defending group (4.8%), parent norms-no defending group (3.6%), weak norms-low defending group (24.3%), teacher-peer norms-medium defending group (40.6%), teacher-peer norms-high defending group (26.7%). In four out of the five patterns, students' levels of defending intention were highly consistent with the levels of peer and teacher norms, but largely contradicted parent norms. This suggests that descriptive norms from peers and injunctive norms from teachers, other than those from parents are crucial for promoting bystanders' defending intention, which provides important enlightenment for school bullying prevention. These findings provide important enlightenment for the prevention and control of school bullying in the future.

Reinforcement learning of altruistic punishment differs between cultures and across the lifespan

Altruistic punishment is key to establishing cooperation and maintaining social order, yet its developmental trends across cultures remain unclear. Using computational reinforcement learning models, we provided the first evidence of how social feedback dynamically influences group-biased altruistic punishment across cultures and the lifespan. Study 1 (n = 371) found that Chinese participants exhibited higher learning rates than Americans when socially incentivized to punish unfair allocations. Additionally, Chinese adults showed slower learning and less exploration when punishing ingroups than outgroups, a pattern absent in American counterparts, potentially reflecting a tendency towards ingroup favoritism that may contribute to reinforcing collectivist values. Study 2 (n = 430, aged 12-52) further showed that such ingroup favoritism develops with age. Chinese participants' learning rates for ingroup punishment decreased from adolescence into adulthood, while outgroup rates stayed constant, implying a process of cultural learning. Our findings highlight cultural and age-related variations in altruistic punishment learning, with implications for social reinforcement learning and culturally sensitive educational practices promoting fairness and altruism.

Investigating the dynamics of tax evasion and revenue leakage in somali customs

This study aims to investigate the dynamics of tax evasion and revenue leakage in the Somali customs framework, providing insights into the systemic opportunity structures, tax governance deficiencies, and personal incentive structures that facilitate these practices. By applying agency theory and rent-seeking theory, this research seeks to deepen the understanding of the complex relationship between individual motivations and systemic vulnerabilities in exacerbating corruption and tax evasion in a post-conflict governance context. By employing structural equation modeling (SEM) within the ADANCO-SEM analysis framework, this study analyzes primary survey data. This approach allows for a comprehensive examination of the relationships between systemic, governance, and personal factors contributing to corruption and tax evasion. The findings reveal a significant positive relationship between systemic opportunity structures, tax governance deficiencies, and personal incentive structures and the prevalence of tax evasion and corruption. Specifically, systemic opportunity structures were found to significantly influence both tax governance deficiencies and personal incentive structures, highlighting the intertwined nature of these factors in facilitating corrupt practices and tax evasion in Somali customs. This study underscores the urgent need for comprehensive reforms targeting systemic vulnerabilities, enhancing tax governance frameworks, and aligning personal incentives with the public interest. Practical applications include the adoption of advanced technological solutions for improved monitoring and transparency, as well as the development of targeted training programs for customs officials to foster ethical standards and compliance. This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing a unique empirical examination of corruption and tax evasion in the context of Somali customs, a largely underexplored area in the literature. By integrating agency theory and rent-seeking theory, this study offers novel insights into the mechanisms of corruption and tax evasion, highlighting the importance of addressing both systemic and individual factors in combating these issues.

Comedy, consensus, and conflict framework: Comedy as a norm violation can build consensus or escalate conflict in negotiations

In this work, we propose that humor violates norms that can build consensus or escalate conflict in negotiations. Drawing on social identity theory, we propose that humor commits norm violations that are more likely to be perceived as benign among ingroup observers in negotiations, but perceived as offensive to outgroup observers in negotiations. We introduce the Comedy, Consensus, and Conflict Framework to shed light on the interpersonal effect of humor on negotiations. When humor is expressed to an ingroup observer, relative to neutral communication, humor is more likely to violate weak norms that govern social group membership resulting in the violation as being perceived as benign, which promotes cooperative behaviors in negotiations such as concessions and collaborative problem-solving. By contrast, when humor is expressed to an outgroup observer, relative to neutral communication, humor is more likely to violate strong norms that define social group membership resulting in the violation as being interpreted as offensive, which triggers competitive behaviors in negotiations such as aggressive offers and hardened positions. Furthermore, we suggest that humor not only generates appraisals of social identity threats, but also affective responses that influence negotiation behavior. Finally, we expand our theoretical model about humor to consider key relational factors that influence norm strength, which motivates whether negotiators appraise norm violations as offensive or benign.

Modelling social norms: an integration of the norm-utility approach with beliefs dynamics

We review theoretical approaches for modelling the origin, persistence and change of social norms. The most comprehensive models describe the coevolution of behaviours, personal, descriptive and injunctive norms while considering influences of various authorities and accounting for cognitive processes and between-individual differences. Models show that social norms can improve individual and group well-being. Under some conditions though, deleterious norms can persist in the population through conformity, preference falsification and pluralistic ignorance. Polarization in behaviour and beliefs can be maintained, even when societal advantages of particular behaviours or belief systems over alternatives are clear. Attempts to change social norms can backfire through cognitive processes including cognitive dissonance and psychological reactance. Under some conditions social norms can change rapidly via tipping point dynamics. Norms can be highly susceptible to manipulation, and network structure influences their propagation. Future models should incorporate network structure more thoroughly, explicitly study online norms, consider cultural variations and be applied to real-world processes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Social norm change: drivers and consequences'.

Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries

The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat.