social norms

Examples of social norms in the following topics:

• Norms

  • Social norms are the explicit or implicit rules specifying what behaviors are acceptable within a society or group.
  • Social norms are neither static nor universal; they change with respect to time and vary with respect to culture, social classes, and social groups.
  • Deference to social norms maintains one's acceptance and popularity within a particular group.
  • Students demonstrate social norms of personal space by violating the norms.
  • Explain the origin, reinforcement, and significance of social norms in a society or group

• Deviance

  • Deviance, in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviors that violate informal social norms or formally-enacted rules.
  • Among those who study social norms and their relation to deviance are sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminologists, all of whom investigate how norms change and are enforced over time.
  • The second type of deviant behavior involves violations of informal social norms (norms that have not been codified into law) and is referred to as informal deviance.
  • Cultural norms are relative, which makes deviant behavior relative as well.
  • These rules are one example of how norms vary across cultures.

• Norms and Sanctions

  • Norms are social rules of behavior, and a sanction is a form of punishment against violation of different norms.
  • Norms are the social rules that govern behavior in a community.
  • The act of violating a social norm is called deviance.
  • For example, one cannot merely say that showing up nude to a job interview is a violation of social norms.
  • The violation of social norms, or deviance, results in social sanction.

• Childhood Socialization

  • Social norms pertaining to gender are developed through socialization, the lifelong process of inheriting, interpreting, and disseminating norms, customs, and ideologies.The process of socialization continues throughout one's life and is constantly renegotiated, but socialization begins as soon as one is born.
  • Secondary socialization refers to the socialization that takes place throughout one's life, both as a child and as one encounters new groups that require additional socialization.
  • When a boy gets a football for his birthday and a girl receives a doll, this also socializes children to accept gender norms.
  • The example set by an individual's family is also important for socialization; children who grow up in a family with the husband a breadwinner and the wife a homemaker will tend to accept this as the social norm, while those who grow up in families with female breadwinners, single parents, or same-sex couples will develop different ideas of gender norms.
  • Because gender norms are perpetuated immediately upon birth, many sociologists study what happens when children fail to adopt the expected gender norms rather than the norms themselves.

• The Role of Socialization

  • Socialization prepares people for social life by teaching them a group's shared norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors.
  • The belief that killing is immoral is an American norm, learned through socialization.
  • As children grow up, they are exposed to social cues that foster this norm, and they begin to form a conscience composed of this and other norms.
  • The role of socialization is to acquaint individuals with the norms of a social group or society.
  • Broadly defined, socialization is the process of transferring norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors to future group members.

• Gender Socialization

  • Gender socialization is the process by which males and females are informed about the norms and behaviors associated with their sex.
  • Socialization is the process of transferring norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors to group members.
  • The most intense period of socialization is during childhood, when adults who are members of a particular cultural group instruct young children on how to behave in order to comply with social norms.
  • Gender socialization is thus the process of educating and instructing males and females as to the norms, behaviors, values, and beliefs of group membership .
  • Gender fluidity also shows how gender norms are learned and either accepted or rejected by the socialized individual.

• Nonmaterial Culture

  • Material culture is a term developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations.
  • Social norms are group-held beliefs about how members should behave in a given context.
  • Sociologists describe norms as laws that govern society's behaviors.
  • Values are related to the norms of a culture, but they are more global and abstract than norms.
  • Norms, values, and beliefs are all deeply interconnected.

• The Functionalist Perspective on Deviance

  • Functionalism claims that deviance help to create social stability by presenting explanations of non-normative and normative behaviors.
  • On the one hand, this fractured society into those marked as homosexuals and those unmarked as normative heterosexuals.
  • Structural functionalists ask "How does any given social phenomenon contribute to social stability?"
  • Deviance allows for the majorities to unite around their normativity, at the expense of those marked as deviant.
  • On the one hand, this fractured society into those marked as homosexuals and those unmarked as normative heterosexuals.

• Values

  • Values are related to the norms of a culture, but they are more global and abstract than norms.
  • Norms are rules for behavior in specific situations, while values identify what should be judged as good or evil.
  • Flying the national flag on a holiday is a norm, but it reflects the value of patriotism.
  • Members of the punk movement refused to conform to some of the normative values prevalent in Western culture.
  • Punk social groups are often considered marginal and are excluded from certain mainstream social spaces.

• Introduction

  • The term collective behavior refers to social processes and events which do not reflect existing social structure (laws, conventions, and institutions), but which emerge in a "spontaneous" way.
  • Collective behavior might also be defined as action which is neither conforming (in which actors follow prevailing norms) nor deviant (in which actors violate those norms).
  • Collective behavior, a third form of action, takes place when norms are absent or unclear, or when they contradict each other.
  • 1) collective behavior involves limited and short-lived social interaction while groups tend to remain together longer
  • 3) collective behavior generates weak and unconventional norms while groups tend to have stronger and more conventional norms