Norms in Sociological Theory

Norms in the Wild (2017) by Christina Bicchieri

• Policy and human rights implications of norms and why/why not interventions to change norms succeed or fail
• There are a range of areas in this: mainly social norms, but also customs and 'descriptive norms'
• Some behaviours are collective and independent, whilst others are collective but also interdependent 
• Pluralistic ignorance - individuals believing that their actions are driven by different drivers than those of other people (though they are actually driven by the same) when the behaviours are the same of other people
• Social norms are driven by social expectation and others actions and beliefs and interactions, whilst descriptive norms are driven only by "empirical expectations"

• How we measure social norms is important, and we should measure them objectively and not just through observation 
• One way to do this is through using surveys and other sociological tools, including quantitative mathematics, to measure conformity
• Also notes things like norm transgressions and norm manipulations 
• There are a range of ways to try to change norms and not all of them will work. The media and education are often involved. Often the clinching factor in whether a given norm will be changed or not will depend on whether the target demographic it is attempted to be changed in has been consulted on and involved in the intervention
• Argues that the first people to change a norm carry the costs of this, but that after this change may be very fast (and this is where Bacchieri's argument deviates from others, as they generally assume slow change) as the cost of not following the norm goes, and the benefit of stopping the norm becomes more (for norms where the environment has changed to make them no longer really useful, if they ever were, for example)
• These first people to ignore a norm, and so (potentially, not always) set change into motion are the trendsetters

The Foundation of Social Theory (1994) by Coleman

• Many theorists (esp Durkheim) see norms as a way of making the leap from macrosocial dynamics to microsocial ones
• For Talcott Parsons, norms are there to 'maximise utility' (within the overall framework of RCT)
• Their definition for a norm: "a norm concerning a specific action exists when the society defined right to control the action is held not by the actor but by others ... others have authority over the action" (Coleman 1994)
• It is the fact that others assume the 'right' to dictate a certain behaviour makes the way that behaviour is dictated/expected to be a norm
• Some norms are conflicting (conflicting norms) with each other (e.g. to drink/not to drink)
• They name different types of norm: focal norms (do certain things), proscriptive norms (a subset of focal norms, don't do certain things), prescriptive norms (display certain behaviours), also conventional norms
• Who is the beneficiary of a norm and who is the target won't always line up 
• Conjoint norms are…