What are Social Norms?

Franz Dietrich and Kai Spiekermann ()
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Kai Spiekermann: London School of Economics

Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne

Abstract: While the importance of social norms for shaping and transforming communities is uncontested, their nature and normativity are controversial. Most recent theorists take social norms to arise if members hold certain attitudes, such as expectations on others, perhaps along with certain behaviours. Yet attitudes do not create norms, let alone social norms or social normativity. Social norms are instead made: through a social process. Social norming processes are special communication processes, often non-verbal and informal. We present different versions of a process-based account of social norms and social normativity. The process-based view brings social norms closer to legal norms, as processes represent social 'acts' just as laws and contracts arise through acts rather than mere attitudes, for instances acts of voting or signing

Keywords: social norms; normativity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2024-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-hpe
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