Sociological Theory IIWeek 4: Social Norms

Hilary 2019

Dr Anna Krausovahttp://users.ox.ac.uk/~sant3223/

Recall last week:

▪ ‘Society is not something external to the individual; it is internalized through emotions such as shame and anger.’

• How can society be internalised?

➔Social norms

What are social norms?

What are social norms – some examples

What are social norms?

• Formal v. non-formal norms• Social/moral norms versus legal norms

• Non-formal:• Social norms

• Moral norms

➔How distinct are these?

➔Think back to the norm prohibiting sex between siblings? Why is it wrong? Is that a social or a moral norm?

Elster’s social v. moral norms

▪ Difference depends on whether observation by others matters

▪ Shame versus guilt

“the operation of social norms depends crucially on the agent being observed by others” (2009, p.196)

▪ Social, moral and quasi-moral norms

▪ Social norms not necessarily functional

▪ Social norm ≠ equilibrium strategy in repeated games (cf. Gintis, 2014)

Social v. moral norms▪ ‘Grounds view’ (Brennan et al, 2013):

▪ social norms = practice-dependant | moral norms = practice-independent

▪ Bicchieri, 2017:▪ social norms = conditional | moral norms = unconditional

▪ But, an analytically useful distinction?▪ Is driving on the left a social norm? Moral norm? Legal norm? All of them?

▪ Dubreuil & Grégoire, 2013▪ Norms of cooperation and fairness (for Elster, quasi-moral) – questionable that

being observed does not matter at all▪ Moreover, role of emotions in Elster’s typology unclear:

“If we fail to do our share of a common task, we might experience shame just as if we break a rule of etiquette, or guilt just as if we hurt someone (p.149)”

How do social norms emerge?

As strategy in games

▪ Games where actions cause positive or negative side-effects for other people▪ E.g. pollution, team efforts, contribution to a ‘public good’ (=nobody can be

excluded from its consumption)

▪ All players better off if public good provided and all share cost, but each individual has incentive to free ride▪ E.g. vaccinations, demonstrations

▪ Social norm punishes defectors and helps produce public good fairly

Fehr & Fischbacher (2004)▪ How to define social norms then?

▪ Core element: ▪ ‘the behavior and beliefs of one agent depend in more or less complex ways on the

often unspoken expectations held about the behavior and beliefs of other agents’▪ Not useful to insist on typologies

▪ Conditional cooperation norm▪ third party observes the behaviour of players in Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD)

➔ the third party has the option of punishing the PD players

➔ subjects who cooperate in the PD are almost never punished by third parties whereas defectors are

▪ But, the punishment of a defector is much stronger if the other player in the PD cooperated than if the other player in the PD defected

Fehr & Fischbacher(2004)

▪ Conditional cooperation norm:

Fehr & Fischbacher(2004)

▪ Impact of punishment opportunities on cooperation rates in a public-goods experiment:

How do social norms (of cooperation) emerge?

▪ Reduction of calculation costs (Fehr & Fischbacher (2004)

▪ Equilibrium in repeated iterations (recall Gintis’ ‘folk theorem’)

▪ Importance of communication for endogenous rule formation (not just external rules) (Ostrom, 2006)

▪ Evolutionary advantage? (Bowles & Gintis, 2011)

Hawkins et al (2019)

▪ Group processes & the structure of interactions▪ E.g. spatial effects (clusters)

▪ Persistent institutions

▪ Intergenerational turnover

▪ Tipping points

▪ Local interactions:

“to ground population-level phenomena, not in appeals to

global equilibria or simple behavioural heuristics, but in the

real computational problems faced by agents trying to learn and act in the world” (p.164)

Hawkins et al (2019)

▪ Again, importance of communication for endogenous norm formation

1. Prior population-level expectations required to successfully communicate difficult-to-express words to a novel partner

2. Learning: agents acquire expectations allowing them to move from universally understood sketches to more efficient but idiosyncratic ‘symbolic’ representations

3. Local expectations are partner-specific, but, with sufficient consistency of partners, may generalize to global expectations

Bowles & Gintis (2011)▪ ‘A Cooperative Species’: social norms as evolutionary advantage?

“Humans became a cooperative species because our distinctive livelihoods made cooperation within a group highly beneficial to its members and, exceptionally among animals, we developed the cognitive, linguistic and other capacities to structure our social interactions in ways that allowed altruistic cooperators to

proliferate.” (p.197)

▪ Contrast with ▪ ‘state of nature’ thought experiments (e.g. Hobbs)▪ individual rationality as a starting assumption

▪ Still, intra-group cooperation compatible with inter-group competition

▪ Useful today?

How are social norms perpetuated?

How are social norms perpetuated?

▪ Are social norms rational?▪ Always secure the greatest (collective pay-off)?▪ Maintaining an equilibrium?

▪ Are social norms functional? ▪ Serve a clear function for society/community?

▪ Are social norms emotional? ▪ Because of the emotions compliance and non-compliance they engender?

“Social norms have a grip on the mind that is due to the strong emotions they can trigger. The emotions that accompany social norms are embedded in a network of rules and expectations” (Elster 1991, p.111)

▪ Are all social norms a solution to a game theoretical public good problem? Are all social norms optimal/functional to providing public goods?

Are all social norms optimal/functional to providing public goods?

▪YES?▪ Norms against those who impose externalities (litter in the park, spit in

the street, urinate in the lake, drink coffee without putting coins in the pot, norms against smoking in public places, norms against overgrazing and overfishing)

▪ Many such norms imposed by external authorities and backed by legal sanctions (no smoking signs, no spitting signs, …)

Are all social norms optimal/functional to providing public goods?

▪NO?▪ E.g. norms of revenge: “create more disruption than they control”

▪ Problem of functional explanations: ‘because something exists, it must be functional and the function explains the origin’

▪ A norm may have an effect that is different from the reason why it exists/emerged (e.g. norms of etiquette)

▪ A norm may persist even when no longer functional in any way

▪ Disgust as an emotion internalising social norms ▪ Different religious meat consumption norms: disgust plays

a role in racism, discrimination and ethnic violence (Hasan, Nussbaum, et al. 2019)

▪ European colonialism: there is a “familiar moral reflex of blaming the victim, and it is the chief seduction of moral disgust, because it provides self-exculpation and a justification for moral withdrawal” (Ignatieff, 2004: 555)

▪ Did (visceral) emotions play a role in maintaining a pro-slavery social norm in the US South during US Civil War?

“Culturally learned traits, such as the U.S. Southern culture of honor, have physiological correlates, such as

elevated testosterone when insulted among males of European origin from the U. S. South (but not the North)”

(Bowles & Gintis, 2011)

Is racism is a ‘social norm’?

How do social norms change?

Can we change social norms?

▪ Example: Female Genital Mutilation▪ Appears to be on decline

(lower prevalence among girls aged 0-14), but still ~200 million women affected (UNICEF, 2016)

▪ But, ‘modernisation’ theory not enough – e.g. in Sudan & Somalia: mother’s education = FGM (UNICEF, 2013)

Foot-binding (Mackie, 1996)▪ Origin of norm:

▪ Assumption: Families want to marry their offspring; females certain of maternity, males not certain of paternity

▪ Families advertise males as capable of providing and females as both fertile and faithful

▪ Under conditions of extreme resource inequality (imperial courts), polygyny (many wives) and hypergyny (women seeking to marry men of higher rank)

▪ Better to be the second wife of a high ranking man than the second wife of a lower ranking man

“Local conventions of modesty emerge: foot binding in one place, infibulation in another” (p.1008)

▪ Game of coordination: mutilation emerges as conventional prerequisite of marriage as a sign of paternity confidence

Foot-binding & FGM (Mackie, 1996)▪ Sudden change in foot-

binding practice?▪ education campaign

(international ridicule & advantages of natural feet)

▪ natural-foot societies –pledge associations

➔escaping an inferior equilibrium

▪ Can FGM be ended the same way as foot-binding?

“Knowing that we are at an inferior coordination equilibrium is necessary but not sufficient for

change” (p.1015)

Can we change social norms?

▪Where does social change come from in general?

➔Collective action and social movements next week

Essay questions:

▪ Are social norms consistent with rational behaviour?

▪ Any norm that endures within a social group must be functional for that social group.’ Do you agree?

▪ How do social norms emerge (and disappear)?

Further revision questions:

▪ Are social norms always functional for solving problems of collective action?

▪ Can ‘culture’ be reduced to the preferences and beliefs of individuals?

▪ Are any social institutions sustained by self-interest alone?

Any questions?

anna.krausova@sociology.ox.ac.uk

References ▪ Core readings:

▪ Bicchieri, C. (2017). Norms in the wild : how to diagnose, measure, and change social norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press

▪ Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (2011). A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution: Princeton University Press.

▪ Elster, J. (2009). Norms. In P. Hedström & P. S. Bearman (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of analytical sociology (pp. xxi, 772 p.). Oxford ; New York,: Oxford University Press.

▪ Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2004). Social norms and human cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 185-190.

▪ Gintis, H. (2014). The bounds of reason : game theory and the unification of the behavioral sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

▪ Hawkins, R. X. D., Goodman, N. D., & Goldstone, R. L. (2019). The Emergence of Social Norms and Conventions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(2), 158-169.

▪ Mackie, G. (1996). Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account. American Sociological Review, 61(6), 999-1017.

▪ Extra resources:▪ Brennan, G., Eriksson, L., Goodin, R., & Southwood, N. (2013). Moral and social norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

▪ Dubreuil, B., & Grégoire, J.-F. (2013). Are moral norms distinct from social norms? A critical assessment of Jon Elster and Cristina Bicchieri. Theory and Decision, 75(1), 137-152.

▪ Hasan, Z., Huq, A. Z., Nussbaum, M. C., & Verma, V. (2018). The empire of disgust : prejudice, discrimination, and policy in India and the US (First edition. ed.). New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.

▪ Ignatieff, M. (2004). The seductiveness of moral disgust. Social Research, 71(3), 549-568.

▪ Elster, J. Rationality and social norms. European Journal of Sociology. Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 109-129

▪ Ostrom, E. (2006). The value-added of laboratory experiments for the study of institutions and common-pool resources. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 61(2), 149-163.

▪ UNICEF. (2013). Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change New York: United Nations Children's Fund, July 2013.

▪ UNICEF. (2016). Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Global Concern. New York: United Nations Children's Fund, February 2016.

▪ The lectures slides were also informed by previous lectures notes by Prof. Federico Varese.