Thursday, February 12, 2009

What is a norm?



  • What is a norm?
  • How are social norms embodied in behavior and structure?
  • How do individuals internalize norms?
  • How do norms influence behavior?
  • What factors stabilize a norm system over time?
  • What social factors influence change in a norm system?








jeremy said...

if that is a norm, then what is a convention?

Daniel Little said...

I'd say that a convention is a regularity of behavior that represents a beneficial solution to a common problem that works insofar as most people act in accordance with it; and the motivation for acting in accordance with the convention is the fact that the agent derives the associated benefits. I'm thinking here of David Lewis's book Convention. This implies that an important difference between a norm and a convention is the presence/absence of sanctions. (The example I gave of the pattern of counter-clockwise skating in the ice rink probably falls in the category of convention rather than norm on that definition.)

Mark said...

Professor Little,

I've recently gotten interested in the role of normalization in politics both in the way the constant feedback of the blogosphere distorts the process (
and in the way that the different parties set their norms in such a way that it leaves no common ground.

Any chance of a blog entry on these aspects of normalization? I'd like to get your take on the subject.


Jon Fernquest said...


An extension of politics and strategy among premodern elites in societies ranging from Burma to Machiavelli's Italy, see especially: Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434, Padgett and Ansell, American JOurnal of Sociology, vol. 98, no. 6 1993

Also Avner Greif, A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change, is the first paper I thought of when i read this stimulating post.

Daniel Little said...


These are great suggestions -- thanks. The PDF article "Commitment, Coercion and Markets" is especially relevant to the last several posts on the new institutionalism.

Daniel Little said...

Mark, You've said it well in the two posts you mention. I suppose all I have to add is the point that forming beliefs about the external world -- the natural world or the social world -- really requires that we leave ourselves open to evidence generated by the world, not simply manufactured or selected out of our antecedent biases and assumptions. So the "echo chamber" that you describe is one that is more or less guaranteed not to lead to a veridical understanding of the world. It is more like a prison house of antecedent assumption and bias.

jeremy said...

I think the other key thing to norms is that they generally have an associated value that is not utility-based/commensurable. norms are tied to these non-commensurate values, whereas conventions may be tied to some utility calculation, but as you note, hold no system of sanction that would indicate a value.

Joseph said...

So if my journal submission doesn't conform to the journals various arbitrary conventions for article submission, I won't be sanctioned for it?

Daniel Little said...


The journal's requirements are not conventions; they are rules or procedures over which they have the power of enforcement -- declining publication until conformity is reached. So that's an easy case, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

Is it o.k. to break a norm amongst a huge Hispanic family such as my own who all attend a cook off family event that consists of over 100 people, who go there mainly to drink, let their kids do whatever the hell they want and have a good time, while most of them are complaining that their stomach's hurt while holding beers in their hands? I went to one of these events and rarely ever do, just to observe. I found that the adults were acting more like children, and the children were acting more like adults!

Anonymous said...

Norms that exist in our society include????!!!!!?????
help i need help