Social norms are communally agreed upon, morally significant behavioral standards that are, at least in part, responsible for uniquely human forms of cooperation and social organization. This article summarizes evidence demonstrating that ritual and ritualized behaviors are essential to the transmission and reinforcement of social norms. Ritualized behaviors reliably signal an intentional menta...

Social Norms proliferate in societies as a mechanism for self-organization. This kind of norms are not enforced by a central authority and the individuals of the society are those responsible for their generation and maintenance. The maintenance process is what is known as norm support and is supported by several mechanisms like for example laws, social proof, dominance, etc. We believe that ag...

The authors examined the contributions of the minority stress model, traditional masculine gender roles, and perceived social norms in accounting for gay men’s use of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and risky sexual practices. Three hundred fifteen gay men recruited from listserv communities completed measures assessing internalized homophobia, stigma, antigay physical attack, masculinity, and...

Human behavior is frequently guided by social and moral norms; in fact, no societies, no social groups could exist without norms. However, there are few cognitive science approaches to this central phenomenon of norms. While there has been some progress in developing formal representations of norm systems (e.g., deontological approaches), we do not yet know basic properties of human norms: how ...

Past research has generated mixed support among social scientists for the utility of social norms in accounting for human behavior. We argue that norms do have a substantial impact on human action; however, the impact can only be properly recognized when researchers (a) separate 2 types of norms that at times act antagonistically in a situation—injunctive norms (what most others approve or disa...

Social influence in the form of social norms has been widely used to transform behaviors, and is argued to be especially efficacious in the context of health related activities. However, can such externally induced compliance produce negative outcomes? When individuals feel compelled to conform to the behavior of the majority, does it lead to an unexpected backfire effect? We conducted a random...