Bicchieri Cristina, Garzino Demo Luca
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA United States.
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA United States.
Curr Opin Psychol. 2025 Apr;62:101957. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101957. Epub 2024 Nov 28.
In our review, we explore two different flavors of social norms: strength and stability. These two fundamental features are crucial for understanding norm change and designing effective interventions. Strong norms, which significantly influence behavior and are widely adopted, and stable norms, which endure over time, are essential for group coordination and addressing collective challenges. Using game theory, we discuss what constitutes norms' strength, drawing on Bicchieri's framework and tightness-looseness theory. Using the game-theoretic notion of evolutionary stable states, we also differentiate between strength and stability, listing possible enforcement mechanisms like punishment, gossip, and perceived legitimacy. Here we argue that stability is not a mere consequence of strength but a different feature of norms that is separate but linked. We conclude by highlighting the need for a theoretical definition of stability, incorporating various mechanisms from the literature to provide a robust theoretical framework for future research on social norms.
在我们的综述中，我们探讨了社会规范的两种不同特性：强度和稳定性。这两个基本特征对于理解规范变化和设计有效干预措施至关重要。强大的规范（即对行为有重大影响且被广泛采用的规范）和稳定的规范（即随时间持续存在的规范）对于群体协调和应对集体挑战至关重要。利用博弈论，我们借鉴比切里的框架和松紧度理论来讨论构成规范强度的因素。利用进化稳定状态的博弈论概念，我们还区分了强度和稳定性，列出了诸如惩罚、流言蜚语和感知合法性等可能的执行机制。在此我们认为，稳定性并非强度的简单结果，而是规范的一个不同特征，它与强度相互独立但又相互关联。我们通过强调需要对稳定性进行理论定义来得出结论，纳入文献中的各种机制，为未来关于社会规范的研究提供一个强大的理论框架。
