Colby+Carrs+Lit+Review

 Social Norms Colby Carr  One of the most preeminent forms of social interaction is Social Norms. The way that a country or society is viewed by others is largely based on their social norms because of how powerful they are. Norms are based in two categories, legal and social norms. The state of which norms are followed is extremely powerful and they are rarely broken and when they are people react different.  Legal norms are the laws that the government places upon citizens of their nation to fallow and if they are not followed there is a punishment enforced by the state. Laws are usually set in stone but can change based on the society. In 1920 the United States of America enacted the eighteenth amendment, which prohibited the consumption, sales, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. This went on throughout the entire 1920’s and then for a few years in the 1930’s. In 1933 the twenty-first amendment abrogated the eighteenth amendment and brought alcohol back into the United States. This is an example of a law that has changed based on society and the needs of the society.   Social norms however are a standard set by the people of the society and if they are not followed the people will be either disgusted at the person for not following them or shun that individual until that person follows the norms of the society. Social Norms also change over time and are not set in stone like laws. A quantitative longitudinal by Marlis Buchmann studied two groups of United States High School Graduates in the years 1960 and 1980. Marlis Buchmann found that the graduates of 1980 where more individualized than those people who graduated in 1960. Also Buchmann found that the 1980 graduates were more likely to spend more time in college and not being married or have children where as the class of 1960 were less likely to attend college longer and where more likely to have children and become married early on in life. This is a strong example of how social norms change over time. The norm in 1960 was to get married young have children and not attend college that long, on the other hand the norm for 1980 was to go to school and become educated in what you wanted to do while not getting married and having children at a later date. Social norms, when violated, will make people look around or even ask someone why they are doing something. For example, in the United States when you are in line for buying something it is a norm to go to the end of the line. If the norm is violated by cutting in front of someone in line than people get angry will say something or even begin to act violently. This example of a norm is something you don’t think about in everyday life, it is just courteous to go to the end of a line when you get there not cut someone in a line.   Social norms are very powerful and important in our society. Many television and radio stations are ran off listener contributions in the United States. They play messages on their stations to inform listeners of there need. The listener in turn gives them there time, attention, and sometimes money to keep their radio station from becoming extinct. If the music being played is enjoyable to the listener than they will support the radio station to their best ability so the music that they like will still be on the radio. The Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS) has realized the norms of society and tries to make there shows based on their audience at certain times in the day. PBS uses the things such as the census and other things to see the quantitative data for people in America. PBS has based their shows and times on the amount of disposable income per family, higher education, ethnic homogeneity, residential stability, religion, and community size; this helps them pick the right program for the right community at the right time, which makes people want to watch their programs in turn giving them their time and attention.   Based on research on social norms, an experiment violating social norms will provide evidence of the power of norms and how strong they are in society. People in different cultures will react differently but more than 65% of people in most to all countries will have a reaction to a violation for a social norm. In an experiment regarding walking next to someone, a stranger, on an escalator which is a direct violation to the personal space norm, will get reactions either someone saying something getting angry or even result in violence if nothing is done about the person moving.    

Bibliography  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Martha Kropf, and Stephen Knack. "Viewers like You: Community Norms and Contributions to Public Broadcasting ." //Political Research Quarterly,// (June 2003): n. pag. //JSTOR//. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/ stable/ 3219897?seq=3&Search=yes&term=norms&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dnorms%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dsocial%2Bnorms%2Bin%2Bmodern%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=23&ttl=121445&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Joachim J. Savelsberg. "Dialectics of Norms in Modernization ." //The Sociological// //Quarterly// 2 ser. 43.2 (2002): 277-305. //JSTOR//. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4121197?seq=10&Search=yes&term=modern&term=social&term=norms&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsocial%2Bnorms%2Bin%2Bmodern%26wc%3Don%26dc%3%2BDisciplines&item=2&ttl=51484&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">