Human Community Norm

A Human Community Norm is a social norm that provides regulatory frameworks for human behavior within human communities through both formal codification and informal understanding.

• AKA: Societal Norm, Social Convention, Collective Behavioral Standard, Community Rule System, Cultural Expectation, Social Regulatory System.
• Context:
  • It can (typically) function as a regulatory mechanism for human social behavior in both explicit human forms and implicit human understandings.
  • It can (typically) emerge through collective agreement and repeated practice within human groups without requiring deliberate human design.
  • It can (typically) persist through intergenerational transmission via cultural learning and human socialization processes.
  • It can (typically) be maintained through informal human sanctions and human social rewards that operate outside formal human enforcement systems.
  • It can (typically) create social cohesion by establishing shared behavioral expectations in human communities.
  • It can (typically) reduce social coordination costs by standardizing interaction patterns and providing human decision-making shortcuts.
  • It can (typically) reflect core human values of the human community that maintains it, translating abstract human principles into concrete human behaviors.
  • It can (typically) provide psychological security through predictable human interaction patterns and stable human expectations.
  • It can (typically) enable human group cooperation by aligning individual human behaviors with collective human interests.
  • It can (typically) establish implicit human boundaryies for acceptable human behavior within specific human contexts.
  • It can (typically) evolve through human norm cascade processes following initial human adoption thresholds.
  • It can (typically) be internalized through human psychological processes, becoming part of human identity and human self-concept.
  • ...
  • It can (often) be unspoken but understood by human community members through implicit human learning.
  • It can (often) influence and regulate behavior without requiring explicit articulation or formal human documentation.
  • It can (often) be learned through human community socialization processes rather than explicit human instruction.
  • It can (often) be bundled in a human community lifestyle with other complementary human community norms.
  • It can (often) operate at multiple social scale levels, from micro human community norms in small groups to macro human community norms across entire human societies.
  • It can (often) shift in response to technological changes, economic conditions, and cultural exchange between human communities.
  • It can (often) serve as identity markers for human community members, distinguishing human ingroup from human outgroup.
  • It can (often) generate normative pressure even among those who privately disagree with the human community norm through pluralistic ignorance mechanisms.
  • It can (often) create emotional responses when violated, including human disgust, human outrage, and human moral indignation.
  • It can (often) be selectively enforced based on human social status, human ingroup membership, and human cultural capital.
  • It can (often) demonstrate remarkable historical persistence despite changing human circumstances.
  • It can (often) include both descriptive human components (what people do) and injunctive human components (what people should do).
  • It can (often) be promoted by human norm entrepreneurs who actively advocate for new behavioral standards.
  • It can (often) create human collective action problems when individual human interests conflict with human norm compliance.
  • It can (often) develop through human threshold model dynamics where adoption rates increase once critical human proportions are reached.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Formalized Human Community Norm to being an Informal Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm codification level.
  • It can range from being a Universal Human Community Norm to being a Culture-Specific Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm cultural distribution.
  • It can range from being a Long-Standing Human Community Norm to being an Emerging Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm historical persistence.
  • It can range from being a Rigid Human Community Norm to being a Flexible Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm adaptability.
  • It can range from being a Consciously Recognized Human Community Norm to being an Unconscious Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm awareness level.
  • It can range from being a Strongly Enforced Human Community Norm to being a Weakly Enforced Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm enforcement intensity.
  • It can range from being a Prescriptive Human Community Norm to being a Proscriptive Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm behavioral direction.
  • It can range from being a Regulative Human Community Norm to being a Constitutive Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm functional type.
  • It can range from being a Descriptive Human Community Norm to being an Injunctive Human Community Norm, depending on its human community norm motivational basis.
  • ...
  • It can vary across different human communities and historical periods, reflecting cultural diversity and temporal change.
  • It can be related to various aspects of human social life such as human morality, human law, human religion, and human social roles.
  • It can, when violated, lead to various forms of human social punishment or human social isolation through informal human sanction mechanisms.
  • It can function as a human cognitive shortcut that reduces human decision-making complexity in human social situations.
  • It can serve as a human group boundary marker that distinguishes human ingroup members from human outgroup members.
  • It can interact with human formal institutions to shape human social systems and human governance structures.
  • It can balance individual human autonomy with human collective interests through human norm internalization.
  • It can evolve in response to human environmental changes, human technological innovations, and human demographic shifts.
  • It can transmit across human cultural boundaries through human cultural diffusion processes.
  • It can undergo human community norm erosion during periods of rapid human social change.
  • It can conflict with other human community norms, creating human normative tensions within human communities.
  • It can be internalized to varying degrees, resulting in human norm compliance even without external human enforcement.
  • It can structure human social expectations about appropriate human behavior in specific human social contexts.
  • It can emerge through bottom-up human processes without deliberate human coordination.
  • It can provide human identity frameworks that shape individual human self-concept.
  • It can establish human social heuristics that guide human behavior across recurring human situations.
  • It can undergo human lifecycle phases from human norm emergence to human norm cascade to human norm internalization.
  • It can develop self-reinforcing human mechanisms once established within human communities.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • Digital Human Community Norms, such as:
    • Digital Privacy Human Community Norms, which govern human personal information sharing in human online environments.
    • Digital Etiquette Human Community Norms, which regulate human online communication behaviors like human response time expectations.
    • Digital Content Sharing Human Community Norms, which establish acceptable human practices for human media distribution.
    • Digital Relationship Boundary Human Community Norms, which define appropriate human connections across human digital platforms.
    • Location Sharing Human Community Norms, which determine when and with whom human physical location data can be shared.
    • Digital Self-Presentation Human Community Norms, which govern human identity management across human online spaces.
    • Digital Comment Moderation Human Community Norms, which establish human community standards for acceptable human discourse.
    • Digital Accessibility Human Community Norms, which promote inclusive human design for diverse human users.
    • Digital Platform Governance Human Community Norms, which structure human content moderation and human user behavior regulation.
    • Digital Trust Human Community Norms, which establish human expectations for online human information reliability.
  • Temporal Human Community Norms, such as:
    • Punctuality Human Community Norms, which vary from strict human timing adherence to flexible human timing allowance.
    • Work Schedule Human Community Norms, such as weekend rest human norms or workday hour limitation human norms.
    • Life Stage Timing Human Community Norms, governing age-appropriate human behaviors and human life milestones.
    • Seasonal Celebration Human Community Norms, which coordinate human collective rituals around human calendar events.
    • Time Allocation Human Community Norms, which establish human expectations for human time use.
    • Meal Timing Human Community Norms, which structure human daily schedules around human food consumption.
    • Human Life Course Transition Human Community Norms, which define appropriate human age for major human life events.
    • Human Time Perception Human Community Norms, which shape cultural understandings of human temporal horizons.
  • Communication Human Community Norms, such as:
    • Conversational Turn-Taking Human Community Norms, which regulate human verbal exchange.
    • Greeting Human Community Norms, which prescribe human acknowledgment rituals.
    • Language Register Human Community Norms, which define appropriate human speaking styles for different human social contexts.
    • Disclosure Human Community Norms, which govern human information sharing levels in various human relationships.
    • Politeness Human Community Norms, which structure human interaction through human verbal courtesy.
    • Non-Verbal Communication Human Community Norms, which encode human meaning through human gesture, human facial expression, and human body language.
    • Conversational Distance Human Community Norms, which regulate human physical proximity during human interaction.
    • Taboo Topic Human Community Norms, which establish human prohibited conversation subjects in specific human contexts.
    • Honorific Human Community Norms, which prescribe human respect language based on human status differentials.
  • Religious Human Community Norms, such as:
    • Worship Participation Human Community Norms, which establish human community expectations for human religious observance.
    • Religious Dietary Human Community Norms, which govern human food consumption based on human spiritual beliefs.
    • Religious Attire Human Community Norms, which prescribe human clothing choices reflecting human religious identity.
    • Religious Celebration Human Community Norms, which organize human community activity around human sacred calendar.
    • Religious Marriage Human Community Norms, which structure human partnership formation according to spiritual traditions.
    • Religious Text Interpretation Human Community Norms, which guide human understanding of sacred writings.
    • Religious Authority Human Community Norms, which establish human deference patterns toward spiritual leaders.
  • Economic Human Community Norms, such as:
    • Consumer Human Community Norms, which shape human purchasing decisions and human material acquisition.
    • Wealth Display Human Community Norms, which regulate human ostentatious behavior and human status signaling.
    • Resource Sharing Human Community Norms, which govern human distribution practices within human communities.
    • Debt Repayment Human Community Norms, which establish human obligations around human financial lending.
    • Tipping Human Community Norms, which structure human gratuity practices in human service encounters.
    • Gift-Giving Human Community Norms, which prescribe appropriate human gifts for specific human occasions.
    • Bargaining Human Community Norms, which regulate human price negotiation across different human market contexts.
    • Financial Privacy Human Community Norms, which govern human income disclosure and human wealth discussion.
    • Consumption Restraint Human Community Norms, which limit ostentatious human display in various cultural contexts.
  • Governance Human Community Norms, such as:
    • Civic Participation Human Community Norms, which establish human expectations for human political engagement.
    • Authority Respect Human Community Norms, which govern human deference behavior toward human leadership positions.
    • Public Dissent Human Community Norms, which structure human protest forms and human criticism expression.
    • Justice Human Community Norms, which encode human fairness expectations and human retribution principles.
    • Corruption Tolerance Human Community Norms, which determine acceptable human practices in public human office.
    • Public Resource Use Human Community Norms, which regulate human access to community human goods.
    • Legal Compliance Human Community Norms, which establish human attitudes toward formal human regulation.
  • Historical Human Community Norm Evolution, such as:
    • Pre-Industrial Human Community Norms (pre-1800s), characterized by local human networks and tradition-based human standards.
    • Victorian Era Human Community Norms (1837-1901), characterized by strict human propriety standards and rigid human gender roles.
    • Post-World War II Human Community Norms (1945-1960), emphasizing human nuclear family and human consumer lifestyle.
    • Counterculture Human Community Norms (1960s-1970s), challenging established human social conventions through human alternative lifestyles.
    • Digital Age Human Community Norms (1990s-present), adapting to human online interaction and human technological mediation.
    • Global Pandemic Human Community Norms (2020-2022), establishing novel human safety practices and human social distancing behaviors.
    • Contemporary Human Community Norms (2020s), characterized by increased human norm fluidity and rapid human adaptation.
  • Cross-Cultural Human Community Norm Variations, such as:
    • East Asian Human Community Norms, emphasizing human collective harmony and human hierarchical relationships.
    • Nordic Human Community Norms, balancing human social equality with human individual privacy.
    • Latin American Human Community Norms, prioritizing human familial connections and human interpersonal warmth.
    • Middle Eastern Human Community Norms, structuring human gender interactions and human religious observance.
    • African Human Community Norms, centering human communal obligations and human intergenerational respect.
    • South Asian Human Community Norms, emphasizing human family loyalty and human status recognition.
    • Indigenous Human Community Norms, integrating human environmental stewardship with human spiritual practices.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Individual Human Habits, which are personal human routines not enforced by human social pressure or collective human expectations.
  • Legal Human Requirements that lack human social acceptance, which function through formal human enforcement rather than human community consensus and voluntary human compliance.
  • Biological Human Imperatives, which are driven by physiological human needs rather than human social construction and cultural learning.
  • Non-Human Community Norms, such as chimpanzee community norms or artificial intelligence community norms, which follow different evolutionary paths or programming logic.
  • Human Personal Preferences, which reflect individual human tastes rather than collective human expectations and lack social enforceability.
  • Human Deviant Behavior Patterns, which explicitly reject and violate established human community norms as a form of deliberate human transgression.
  • Human Private Rules, which apply only to specific human individuals or intimate human relationships without wider human community recognition or enforcement mechanisms.
  • Human Anomic Social States, characterized by human norm dissolution during periods of extreme human social disruption where normative vacuums exist.
  • Human Idiosyncratic Practices, which are unique to individual humans and not part of broader human community expectations or social regulatory systems.
  • Human Counter-Cultural Movements that explicitly oppose mainstream human community norms as part of their human identity formation and social change agenda.
  • Human Technical Standards, which establish operational specifications rather than behavioral expectations through explicit codification.
  • Human Objective Knowledge, which represents factual understanding rather than normative prescription.
• See: Human Substantive Norm, Human Societal Punishment, Human Societal Reward, Human Social Psychology, Human Sociology, Human Social Construct, Human Cultural Norm, Human Mores, Human Taboo, Human Digital Social Network, Human Digital Trust Network, Human Norm Lifecycle, Human Social Capital, Human Collective Action, Human Social Influence, Human Social Learning Theory, Human Cultural Evolution, Human Social Institution, Human Deviance Theory, Human Identity Formation, Human Moral Development, Human Legal Anthropology, Human Cultural Relativism, Human Conformity Study, Human Socialization Process, Human Group Dynamics, Human Norm Psychology, Human Cultural Transmission, Human Threshold Model, Human Structural Functionalism, Human Social Exchange Theory, Human Symbolic Interactionism, Human Normative Ethics, Human Social Network Analysis, Human Collective Behavior, Human Norm Enforcement, Human Mimetic Theory, Human Reputation System, Human Ritual Process, Human Normative Conflict Resolution.

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References

2025-05-04

• Perplexity.ai
  • Question: What is a Human Community Norm System? Please explain its core characteristics, classifications, and common functions. Include information about how these norms emerge, persist, and evolve across societies, creating social cohesion while simultaneously allowing for cultural diversity and adaptation.
  • Answer: Human community norms are the informal rules that govern behavior in groups and societies, operating as regulatory mechanisms for social interaction. These norms constitute a fundamental aspect of social organization, establishing guidelines for expected behaviors and setting parameters for appropriate action within specific communities.
    • Understanding Human Community Norms:
      • Defining Characteristics:
        • Norms are socially shared rules understood by community members.
        • Unlike personal preferences, norms represent collective agreements about appropriate behavior.
        • Norms directly concern behavior rather than abstract values, though they often reflect underlying cultural values.
        • Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances.
      • Distinguishing Norms from Other Social Constructs:
        • Norms carry normative weight—the sense that one "ought" to behave in certain ways.
        • Norms differ from personal attitudes and values, which can be held privately.
        • Norms by definition concern behavior and are collectively held ideas about behavior.
    • The Emergence of Social Norms:
      • Bottom-Up Processes:
        • Many social norms emerge spontaneously from individuals' interactions, without conscious human design.
        • In repeated interactions, people develop patterns of behavior that gradually crystallize into recognizable norms.
        • Threshold models help explain this process, where individuals have different "thresholds" for adopting behaviors.
      • Norm Entrepreneurs and Top-Down Processes:
        • Norm entrepreneurs actively advocate for particular behavioral standards.
        • Successful efforts can trigger a norm cascade where the norm gains broad acceptance.
        • The life cycle of norms typically involves three stages: emergence, cascade, and internalization.
      • Psychological Foundations:
        • Norm psychology includes the neural and cognitive processes involved in understanding, acquiring, and complying with norms.
        • Humans become attuned to social norms remarkably early in development.
    • Functions of Human Community Norms:
      • Social Cohesion and Order:
        • Norms create social cohesion by establishing shared behavioral expectations.
        • By providing guidelines for interaction, norms reduce uncertainty and create predictability.
        • No human societies exist without social norms.
      • Reducing Coordination Costs:
        • Norms reduce the costs of social coordination by standardizing interaction patterns.
        • Coordination norms arise most easily when there is a clear need to coordinate.
        • These norms solve coordination problems efficiently.
      • Reflection of Community Values:
        • Norms often reflect the core values and priorities of the communities that maintain them.
        • They embody cultural ideals and moral principles, translating abstract values into concrete behavioral guidelines.
      • Social Heuristics and Cognitive Efficiency:
        • Norms function as social heuristics—mental shortcuts that simplify decision-making.
        • The focus theory of normative conduct explains how people manage sometimes contradictory norms.
    • Types and Classification of Social Norms:
      • Regulative, Constitutive, and Prescriptive Norms:
        • Regulative norms constrain and order behavior.
        • Constitutive norms create new actors, interests, or categories of action.
        • Evaluative and prescriptive norms have an "oughtness" quality.
      • Descriptive Versus Injunctive Norms:
        • Descriptive norms depict what typically happens without assigning judgment.
        • Injunctive norms transmit group approval about particular behaviors.
      • Prescriptive and Proscriptive Norms:
        • Prescriptive norms indicate what we should do.
        • Proscriptive norms specify what we should not do.
      • Formal and Informal Norms:
        • Formal norms are often codified in some way.
        • Informal norms emerge through practice rather than declaration.
      • Strength and Enforcement:
        • Some norms are loosely held "folkways" that generate mild disapproval when violated.
        • Others are tightly held "mores" or "taboos" that elicit strong negative reactions.
    • Transmission and Persistence of Norms:
      • Cultural Transmission and Learning:
        • Cultural transmission plays a crucial role in norm persistence.
        • Transmission occurs through direct instruction, observational learning, and experiential learning.
      • Intergenerational Persistence:
        • Norms persist across generations through deliberate intergenerational transmission.
        • Core normative expectations often show remarkable stability over time.
      • Psychological Internalization:
        • Internalization is the process by which external rules become incorporated into an individual's internal value system.
        • When norms are fully internalized, compliance becomes motivated by internal factors.
      • Network Effects and Social Reinforcement:
        • Social networks play a crucial role in norm maintenance.
        • The structure of social networks influences how quickly norms spread and how stable they remain.
    • Enforcement of Human Community Norms:
      • Informal Sanctions:
        • Informal sanctions are the "everyday workhorses for the maintenance of social order."
        • These sanctions can be negative or positive, punishing inappropriate behavior or rewarding conformity.
        • Informal sanctions often work through anticipation rather than actual application.
      • Social Identity and Group Membership:
        • Social identity plays a significant role in norm enforcement.
        • The social identity framework explains how group identification leads to conformity with group norms.
      • Pluralistic Ignorance and False Consensus:
        • Norms can persist even when many community members privately disagree with them.
        • False consensus occurs when those who strongly support a norm overestimate how many others share their views.
      • Formal Mechanisms and Institutionalization:
        • When norms become particularly important, they may be formalized through institutionalization.
        • Institutionalization can strengthen norms but also change their character.
    • Norm Change and Evolution:
      • Mechanisms of Change:
        • External shocks can disrupt existing norms and create opportunities for new ones.
        • Gradual drift occurs as small variations accumulate over time.
        • Deliberate reform happens when norm entrepreneurs actively advocate for change.
        • Cultural contact leads to norm diffusion between communities.
      • Cultural Mismatches and Maladaptive Norms:
        • Cultural mismatches occur when once-adaptive norms become maladaptive.
        • The persistence of maladaptive norms represents one of the challenges of social coordination.
      • Digital Technology and Norm Evolution:
        • Contemporary norm evolution is significantly influenced by digital technologies.
        • Digital platforms create new contexts requiring novel digital norms.
      • Resistance and Social Movements:
        • Established norms often face resistance from those who benefit from the status quo.
        • Social movements frequently arise to challenge and reshape community norms.
  • Citations:

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-norms/
[2] https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2016/09/social-norms-and-social-change.html
[3] http://www.alanberkowitz.com/articles/social%20norms%20approach-short.pdf
[4] https://sociology.stanford.edu/publications/threshold-models-collective-behavior
[5] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-norms/
[6] https://nathannunn.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2023/11/gelfand-et-al-2023-norm-dynamics-interdisciplinary-perspectives-on-social-norm-emergence-persistence-and-change.pdf
[7] https://study.com/academy/lesson/cultural-transmission-definition-theory.html
[8] https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Informal-sanctions.pdf
[9] https://cjhumanbehaviour.com/2022/11/23/social-norms-what-functions-do-they-serve/
[10] https://www.unicef.org/media/111061/file/Social-norms-definitions-2021.pdf
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm
[12] https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-psych-033020-013319

2023

• (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_norm Retrieved:2023-5-29.
  • Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from “ideas", “attitudes", and “values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances.

    Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ought to do). The effects of norms can be determined by a logic of appropriateness and logic of consequences; the former entails that actors follow norms because it is socially appropriate, and the latter entails that actors follow norms because of cost-benefit calculations.

    Three stages have been identified in the life cycle of a norm: (1) Norm emergence – norm entrepreneurs seek to persuade others of the desirability and appropriateness of certain behaviors; (2) Norm cascade – when a norm obtains broad acceptance; and (3) Norm internalization – when a norm acquires a "taken-for-granted" quality. Norms are robust to various degrees: some norms are often violated whereas other norms are so deeply internalized that norm violations are infrequent. Evidence for the existence of norms can be detected in the patterns of behavior within groups, as well as the articulation of norms in group discourse.

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/norm_(social) Retrieved:2015-11-28.
  • Norms are cultural products (including values, customs, and traditions) which represent individuals' basic knowledge of what others do and think that they should do. Sociologists describe norms as informal understandings that govern individuals' behavior in society. On the other hand, social psychology has adopted a more general definition, recognizing smaller group units, such as a team or an office, may also endorse norms separate or in addition to cultural or societal expectations. In other words, norms are regarded to exist as collective representations of acceptable group conduct as well as individual perceptions of particular group conduct.

    Furthermore, 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". For example, it has been shown that normative messages can promote pro-social behavior, including decreasing alcohol use and increasing voter turnout. According to the psychological definition of social norms' behavioral component, norms have two dimensions: how much a behaviour is exhibited, and how much the group approves of that behavior. Both of these dimensions can be used in normative messages to alter norms and subsequently alter behaviors; for example, a message can target the former dimension by describing high levels of voter turnout in order to encourage more turnout. At the same time, norms also can be changed contingent on the observed behavior of others (how much behavior is exhibited). In fact, in Sherif (1936), one confederate was able to affect the development of a group norm related to the autokinetic effect. Norms running counter to the behaviors of the overarching society or culture may be transmitted and maintained within small subgroups of society. For example, Crandall (1988) noted that certain groups (e.g., cheerleading squads, dance troupes, sports teams, sororities) have a rate of bulimia, a publicly recognized life-threatening disease, that is much higher than society as a whole. Social norms have a way of maintaining order and organizing groups.

2003

• (Clark, 2003) ⇒ Andrew E. Clark. (2003). “Unemployment As a Social Norm: Psychological Evidence from Panel Data.” In: Journal of labor economics 21, no. 2
  • ABSTRACT: This article uses seven waves of panel data to test for social norms in labor market status. The unemployed's well‐being is shown to be strongly positively correlated with reference group unemployment (at the regional, partner, or household level). This result, far stronger for men, is robust to controls for unobserved individual heterogeneity. Panel data also show that those whose well‐being fell the most on entering unemployment are less likely to remain unemployed. These findings suggest a psychological explanation of both unemployment polarization and hysteresis, based on the utility effects of a changing employment norm in the reference group.

1987

• (Coleman, 1987) ⇒ James S. Coleman. (1987). “Norms As Social Capital." Economic imperialism

1936

• (Sherif, 1936) ⇒ Muzafer Sherif. (1936). “The Psychology of Social Norms."
  • ABSTRACT: Most experiments in social psychology are considered defective because the investigators, lacking social perspective, set up their problems within the culture of their own communities. The writer has no sympathy for the controversy between the individual and the social approaches. The individual is regarded as basic, and any valid psychological principle should apply to the individual, alone, in a group, or in relation to his whole culture. Throughout psychology, in perception, in judgment, in affectivity, etc., the frame of reference is shown to be an important determinant of experience. Variations in culture are shown to be variations in frames of reference common to various groups. Social frames of reference (social norms, i.e. values, customs, stereotypes, conventions, etc.) are regarded first as stimuli which meet the individual in his associations with others and then become interiorized. The process of establishing a social norm is illustrated experimentally in an unstable perceptual situation (autokinetic phenomenon). Observing alone, the individual establishes his own frame of reference, which is modified in the direction of conformity when he observes in a group. Observing first in a group, frames of reference are set up which determine subsequent reports when the individual observes alone (illustrating the factual basis for the contentions that supra-individual qualities arise in group situations). Social values in relation to personal needs are discussed in the light of this experiment. A final chapter describes “human nature” as dependent upon the norms peculiar to the individual's group.

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