Norms and Conformity II

Elster (1989) distinguishes social norms from moral norms, claiming that the former is motivated by the emotion of shame while the latter by the emotion of guilt. Also, as social norms are context dependent, moral norms are typically consequentialist and independent of context. This categorization is not helpful for analysis, as there is a great overlap between moral norms and social norms. It is better to simply distinguish social norms from personal norms, where conformity to social norms is motivated by acceptance of others and conformity to personal norms main aims to be liked by oneself. In this categorization, moral norms can fall into either social norms or personal norms, depending on contexts.

Social norms are different from personal norms. While both personal norms and social norms indicate what sort of behavior is appropriate or inappropriate, prescribed or proscribed, they satisfy different psychological needs. According to the self-determination theory, people have three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and connectedness (Deci and Ryan 2000). Conforming to social norms fulfills the need to feel connected to others, to be liked by others. Abiding to personal norms satisfies the need to feel competent, to be right and to be liked by self. Personal norms are shaped by social norms to some extent, but they do not need to be identical. People may or may not internalize social norms as their personal beliefs. An individual may demonstrate a certain behavior prescribed by social norms, but the overt behavior may be incongruent with her personal beliefs. Under certain circumstances, behavior prescribed by social norms may not be conducive to the survival of individuals, so evolution endows human beings the ability to embrace personal beliefs that to some degree differ from social norms.

The Ik people are a good example to illustrate the possible discrepancy between social norms and personal norms. The Ik people often try to avoid situations where they have to follow a social norm. As documented by Turnbull (1987), it is clear that these hunter-gatherers had the norm of reciprocity, but they tried hard to avoid being a help-receiver. They would repair their leaking roof at night in order to escape offers to help and future responsibilities to repay the favor. They also hunted in a furtive way in order not to share the bounty with people encountered along the way. In the case of the Ik people, nobody is violating the norm, but everybody is trying to avoid situations where they would have to follow it.