Norms
Every society has expectations about how its
members should and should not behave. A norm is a guideline or an expectation for
behavior. Each society makes up its own rules for behavior and decides when
those rules have been violated and what to do about it. Norms change
constantly.
How
Norms Differ
Norms differ widely among societies, and they can even differ from group to
group within the same society.
·
Different
settings: Wherever we go, expectations are placed on our behavior. Even within the
same society, these norms change from setting to setting.
Example: The
way we are expected to behave in church differs from the way we are expected to
behave at a party, which also differs from the way we should behave in a
classroom.
·
Different
countries: Norms are place-specific, and what is considered appropriate in one
country may be considered highly inappropriate in another.
Example: In
some African countries, it’s acceptable for people in movie theaters to yell
frequently and make loud comments about the film. In the United States, people
are expected to sit quietly during a movie, and shouting would be unacceptable.
·
Different
time periods: Appropriate and inappropriate behavior often changes
dramatically from one generation to the next. Norms can and do shift over time.
Example: In
the United States in the 1950s, a woman almost never asked a man out on a date,
nor did she pay for the date. While some traditional norms for dating prevail,
most women today feel comfortable asking men out on dates and paying for some
or even all of the expenses.
Norm
Categories
Sociologists have separated norms into four
categories: folkways, mores, laws, and taboos.
Folkways
A folkway is a norm for everyday behavior that
people follow for the sake of convenience or tradition. People practice
folkways simply because they have done things that way for a long time.
Violating a folkway does not usually have serious consequences.
Example: Holding
the door open for a person right behind you is a folkway.
Mores
A more (pronounced MORE-ay) is a norm based
on morality, or definitions of right and wrong. Since mores have moral
significance, people feel strongly about them, and violating a more usually
results in disapproval.
Example: Parents
who believe in the more that only married people should live together will
disapprove of their son living with his girlfriend. They may consider their
son’s action a violation of the moral guidelines for behavior.
Laws
A law is a norm that is written down and
enforced by an official agency. Violating a law results in a specific
punishment.
Example: It
is illegal in most countries to drive a car while drunk, and a person violating
this law may get cited for driving under the influence (DUI), which may bring a
fine, loss of driver’s license, or even jail time.
Taboos
A taboo is a norm that society holds so
strongly that violating it results in extreme disgust. The violator is often
considered unfit to live in that society.
Example: In
most countries, cannibalism and incest are considered taboo. In some Muslim
cultures, eating pork is taboo because the pig is considered unclean.
Deviance
Where there are rules, there are rule
breakers. Sociologists call the violation of a norm deviance. The word deviant has taken on the negative connotation
of someone who behaves in disgusting or immoral ways, but to sociologists, adeviant is anyone who doesn’t follow a norm,
in either a good way or a bad way. See Chapter 6 for more
about deviance.
Example: Most
people don’t graduate from college with a 4.0 grade point average, so
sociologists view someone who does graduate with a 4.0 as deviant. Likewise,
most Americans get married at some point in their lives, so someone who chooses
not to marry is sociologically a deviant.
Although deviance can be good and even
admirable, few societies could tolerate the chaos that would result from every
person doing whatever he or she pleased.Social control refers to the methods that
societies devise to encourage people to observe norms. The most common method
for maintaining social control is the use of sanctions,
which are socially constructed expressions of approval or disapproval.
Sanctions can be positive or negative, and the ways societies devise to
positively or negatively sanction behaviors are limited only by the society’s
imagination.
Positive
Sanctions
A positive
sanction rewards someone for
following a norm and serves to encourage the continuance of a certain type of
behavior.
Example: A
person who performs well at his or her job and is given a salary raise or a
promotion is receiving a positive sanction. When parents reward a child with
money for earning good grades, they are positively sanctioning that child’s
behavior.
Negative
Sanctions
A negative
sanction is a way of
communicating that a society, or some group in that society, does not approve
of a particular behavior. The optimal effect of a negative sanction is to
discourage the continuation of a certain type of behavior.
Example: Imprisoning
a criminal for breaking the law, cutting off a thief’s hands for stealing, and
taking away a teenager’s television privileges for breaking curfew are all
negative sanctions.
Positive or Negative?
A sanction is not always clearly positive or
negative. A child who throws a temper tantrum may find he has everyone’s
attention, but while his parents might be telling him to stop, the attention he
receives for his behavior is actually a positive sanction. It increases the
likelihood that he’ll do it again. Attention can be a powerful positive
sanction, while lack of attention can be a strong negative sanction.
Norms and Consequences
Norm
Example
Consequences for violation
Folkway
Wearing a suit to an interview
Raised eyebrow
More
Only married couples should live together
Conflicts with family members, disapproval
Law
Laws against public nudity
Imprisonment, monetary fine
Taboo
Eating human flesh
Visible signs of disgust, expulsion from
society
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