Social Expectation

A Social Expectation is a behavioral rule that governs acceptable conduct within social groups through collective understandings and enforcement mechanisms.

• AKA: Social Rule, Social Standard, Behavioral Norm, Social Convention.
• Context:
  • It can provide Collective Understanding through informal agreements and shared expectations.
  • It can establish Behavioral Standards through cultural practices and social customs.
  • It can enforce Social Compliance through social pressure and community sanctions.
  • It can transmit Cultural Values through socialization processes and intergenerational learning.
  • It can maintain Social Order through behavioral regulation and conflict prevention.
  • ...
  • It can shape Individual Behavior through descriptive norms and injunctive norms.
  • It can guide Group Interactions through mutual expectations and shared understandings.
  • It can preserve Cultural Practices through tradition maintenance and value transmission.
  • It can evolve through social change and cultural adaptation.
  • It can emerge through early socialization and community influence.
  • It can operate via moral emotions and shared intentionality.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Universal Social Norm to being a Local Custom, depending on its cultural scope.
  • It can range from being an Informal Understanding to being a Codified Law, depending on its formalization level.
  • It can range from being a Core Social Value to being a Situational Practice, depending on its social importance.
  • It can range from being a Human Social Norm to being a Proto Social Norm, depending on its species context.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • Behavioral Social Norms, such as:
    • Greeting Customs for social interaction.
    • Personal Space Rules for physical proximity.
    • Table Manners for dining etiquette.
    • Social Dress Codes for appearance standards.
  • Cultural Social Norms, such as:
    • Family Structure Norms for kinship organization.
    • Gender Roles for social expectations.
    • Religious Practices for spiritual observance.
    • Educational Achievement Norms for academic standards.
  • Evolutionary Social Norms, such as:
    • Universal Social Norms for cross-cultural behaviors.
    • Proto Social Norms for pre-human behaviors.
    • Quasi Social Norms for functional moral behaviors.
  • Enforcement Types, such as:
    • Third-Party Punishments for norm violations.
    • Social Rewards for norm compliance.
    • Peer Pressure for behavioral conformity.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Personal Habits, which lack collective agreement and social enforcement.
  • Legal Regulations, which rely on formal authority rather than social consensus.
  • Individual Preferences, which reflect personal choices rather than group expectations.
  • Statistical Regularitys, which represent behavioral patterns without normative force.
• See: Cultural Norm, Social Convention, Moral Rule, Behavioral Standard, Community Practice, Societal Expectation, Social Psychology, Acceptance, Sociology.

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References

2024-01-02

• Perplexity.ai
  • Question: What are societal expectations and how do they influence behavior? Explain their core components, types, and impact on individuals and groups. Include information about cultural variations, modern challenges, and the process of breaking from norms.
  • Answer: Societal expectations are complex cultural constructs that shape behavior through both formal and informal rules within communities.
    • Core Components:
      • Definition and Nature:
        • Societal expectations function as implicit rules that govern reactions and beliefs in ways deemed acceptable by society.
        • Operate through descriptive norms and injunctive norms.
      • Formation and Transmission:
        • Socialization from early childhood.
        • Cultural practices and traditions.
        • Family and community influence.
        • Media and social institutions.
    • Types of Social Norms:
      • Behavioral Standards:
        • Greeting customs and etiquette.
        • Table manners and dining practices.
        • Personal space preferences.
        • Dress codes and appearance standards.
      • Cultural Expectations:
        • Family structure and relationships.
        • Gender roles and expectations.
        • Religious and spiritual practices.
        • Educational and career achievements.
    • Impact and Influence:
      • Individual Level:
        • Social comparison and self-evaluation.
        • Conformity pressure.
        • Outcome expectations regarding rewards and sanctions.
      • Group Level:
        • Promoting collective behaviors.
        • Binding communities together.
        • Establishing shared values and practices.
  • Citations:

[1] https://www.sbcguidance.org/do/social-norms
[2] https://helpfulprofessor.com/cultural-norms-examples/
[3] https://www.freedomgpt.com/wiki/dissatisfaction-with-societal-expectations
[4] https://www.unicef.org/media/111061/file/Social-norms-definitions-2021.pdf
[5] https://study.com/academy/lesson/cultural-norms-definition-values-quiz.html
[6] https://standtogether.org/stories/strong-safe-communities/breaking-cultural-norms-that-have-become-collective-illusions
[7] https://study.com/academy/lesson/social-expectations-definition-theory-quiz.html
[8] https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-norms-examples.html
[9] https://aseemgupta.com/life-beyond-societal-expectations/
[10] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-norms/
[11] https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-roles.html
[12] https://www.mentalhealth.com/library/how-social-norms-affect-our-decisions

2023

• (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_(norm) Retrieved:2023-7-17.
  • A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, social norms, or other criteria, often taking the form of a custom.

    In a social context, a convention may retain the character of an "unwritten law" of custom (for example, the manner in which people greet each other, such as by shaking each other's hands). Certain types of rules or customs may become law and sometimes they may be further codified to formalize or enforce the convention (for example, laws that define on which side of the road vehicles must be driven).

    In physical sciences, numerical values (such as constants, quantities, or scales of measurement) are called conventional if they do not represent a measured property of nature, but originate in a convention, for example an average of many measurements, agreed between the scientists working with these values.

2020

• (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/norm#In_academic_disciplines Retrieved:2020-5-19.
  • Social norm, expected patterns of behavior and belief
  • …

2020

• (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm Retrieved:2020-5-19.
  • Social norms are regarded as collective representations of acceptable group conduct as well as individual perceptions of particular group conduct. They can be viewed as cultural products (including values, customs, and traditions) which represent individuals' basic knowledge of what others do and think that they should do. From a sociological perspective, social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society. Social psychology recognizes smaller group units (such as a team or an office) may also endorse norms separately or in addition to cultural or societal expectations. ...

2019

• (Wikipedia, 2019) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm Retrieved:2019-12-12.
  • Social norms are regarded as collective representations of acceptable group conduct as well as individual perceptions of particular group conduct. They can be viewed as cultural products (including values, customs, and traditions) which represent individuals' basic knowledge of what others do and think that they should do. From a sociological perspective, social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society. Social psychology recognizes smaller group units (such as a team or an office) may also endorse norms separately or in addition to cultural or societal expectations.

    In the field of social psychology, the roles of norms are emphasized — which can guide behavior in a certain situation or environment as "mental representations of appropriate behavior". It has been shown that normative messages can promote pro-social behavior, including decreasing alcohol use , increasing voter turnout , and reducing energy use. According to the psychological definition of social norms' behavioral component, norms have two dimensions: how much a behavior is exhibited, and how much the group approves of that behavior. These dimensions can be used in normative messages to alter norms (and subsequently alter behaviors). A message can target the former dimension by describing high levels of voter turnout in order to encourage more turnout. Norms also can be changed contingent on the observed behavior of others (how much behavior is exhibited). Social norms can be thought of as: "rules that prescribe what people should and should not do given their social surroundings" (known as milieu, sociocultural context) and circumstances. Examination of norms is "scattered across disciplines and research traditions, with no clear consensus on how the term should be used."

2016

• (Wikipedia, 2016) ⇒ http://wikipedia.org/wiki/third-party_punishment Retrieved:2016-2-25.
  • … altruistic punishment, refers to a phenomenon in which a person or party is punished for violation of social norms by an outside observer who is not directly affected by the violation. It can be argued that third-party punishments are the essence of social norms, as they are evolutionary stable unlike second-party punishments. ...

2015

• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/norm#Noun
  1. A rule that is enforced by members of a community.

     Not eating your children is just one of those societal norms.

2011

• (von Rohr et al., 2011) ⇒ Claudia Rudolf von Rohr, Judith M. Burkart, and Carel P. Van Schaik. (2011). “Evolutionary Precursors of Social Norms in Chimpanzees: A New Approach." Biology & Philosophy 26, no. 1
  • ABSTRACT: Moral behaviour, based on social norms, is commonly regarded as a hallmark of humans. Hitherto, humans are perceived to be the only species possessing social norms and to engage in moral behaviour. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting their presence in chimpanzees, but systematic studies are lacking. Here, we examine the evolution of human social norms and their underlying psychological mechanisms. For this, we distinguish between conventions, cultural social norms and universal social norms. We aim at exploring whether chimpanzees possess evolutionary precursors of universal social norms seen in humans. Chimpanzees exhibit important preconditions for their presence and enforcement: tolerant societies, well-developed social-cognitive skills and empathetic competence. Here, we develop a theoretical framework for recognizing different functional levels of social norms and distinguish them from mere statistical behavioural regularities. Quasi social norms are found where animals behave functionally moral without having moral emotions. In proto social norms, moral emotions might be present but cannot be collectivized due to the absence of a uniquely human psychological trait, i.e. shared intentionality. Human social norms, whether they are universal or cultural, involve moral emotions and are collectivized. We will discuss behaviours in chimpanzees that represent potential evolutionary precursors of human universal social norms, with special focus on social interactions involving infants. We argue that chimpanzee infants occupy a special status within their communities and propose that tolerance towards them might represent a proto social norm. Finally, we discuss possible ways to test this theoretical framework.

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