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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.
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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.
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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.
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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, a deviant 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.