How Norms Emerge from Conventions (and Change)Show others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: SOCIUS, ISSN 2378-0231, Vol. 8, no 2, article id 23780231221124556Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Social norms regulate our behavior in a variety of mundane and far-reaching contexts, from tipping at the restaurant to social distancing during a pandemic. However, how social norms emerge, persist, and change is still poorly understood. Here the authors investigate experimentally whether spontaneously emerging behavioral regularities (i.e., conventions) gain normativity over time and, if so, whether their normative underpinning makes them resistant to changes in economic incentives. To track the coevolution of behavior and normativity, the authors use a set of measures to elicit participants' first- and second-order normative beliefs and their (dis)approval of other participants' behaviors. The authors find that even in the limited duration of their lab experiment, conventions gain normativity that makes these conventions resistant to change, especially if they promote egalitarian outcomes and the change in economic incentives is relatively small. These findings advance our understanding of how cognitive, social and economic mechanisms interact in bringing about social change.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC , 2022. Vol. 8, no 2, article id 23780231221124556
Keywords [en]
convention, social norm, volunteer's dilemma, normative expectations, experimental sociology
National Category
Sociology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-60665DOI: 10.1177/23780231221124556ISI: 000864124800001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85139203756OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-60665DiVA, id: diva2:1712278
2022-11-212022-11-212022-11-21Bibliographically approved