About Norms and Causes

Knowing the norms of a domain is crucial, but there exist no repository of norms. We propose a method to extract them from texts: texts generally do not describe a norm, but rather how a state-of-affairs differs from it. Answers concerning the cause of the state-of-affairs described often reveal the implicit norm. We apply this idea to the domain of driving, and validate it by designing algorithms that identify, in a text, the "basic" norms to which it refers implicitly

Norms and the meaning of omissive enabling conditions

People often reason about omissions. One line of research shows that people can distinguish between the semantics of omissive causes and omissive enabling conditions: for instance, not flunking out of college enabled you (but didn’t cause you) to graduate. Another line of work shows that people rely on the normative status of omissive events in inferring their causal role: if the outcome came about because the omission violated some norm, reasoners are more likely to select that omission as a cause. We designed a novel paradigm that tests how norms interact with the semantics of omissive enabling conditions. The paradigm concerns the circuitry of a mechanical device that plays music. Two experiments used the paradigm to stipulate norms and present a distinct set of possibilities to participants. Participants chose which causal verb best described the operations of the machine. The studies revealed that participants’ responses are best predicted by their tendency to consider the semantics of omissive relations. In contrast, norms had little to no effect in participants’ responses. We conclude by marshaling the evidence and considering what role norms may play in people’s understanding of omissions

International migration, transfers of norms and home country fertility

This paper examines the relationship between international migration and source country fertility. The impact of international migration on source country fertility may have a number of causes, including a transfer of destination countries'fertility norms and an incentive to acquire more education. It provides provide a rigorous test of the diffusion on of fertility norms using original and detailed data on migration. The results provide evidence of a significant transfer of fertility norms from migrants to their country of origin: a one percent decrease in the fertility norm to which migrants are exposed reduces home country fertility by about 0.3 percent for origin countries.Population Policies,Gender and Social Development,Reproductive Health,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Anthropology

Social Preferences on Public Intervention: an empirical investigation based on French Data

In this paper we examine the support given by French households to public intervention for reducing inequalities and improving well-being of the low-income classes. We first discuss to what extent the model of self interest could be relied upon when one wants to take into account social norms to explain the individual demand for redistribution. We find that social beliefs matter for explaining the individual attitudes towards public intervention. We find also that the support given to redistribution can increase or decrease depending on the interaction between reciprocity norms and beliefs about causes of poverty.

A Comparative Study of Inequality and Corruption

We argue that income inequality increases the level of corruption through material and normative mechanisms. The wealthy have both greater motivation and opportunity to engage in corruption, while the poor are more vulnerable to extortion and less able to monitor and hold the rich and powerful accountable as inequality increases. Inequality also adversely affects peoples social norms about corruption and beliefs about the legitimacy of rules and institutions, and thereby makes it easier to tolerate corruption as acceptable behavior. Our comparative analysis of 129 countries utilizing two-staged least squares methods with a variety of instrumental variables supports our hypotheses, using different measures of corruption (the World Banks Control of Corruption Index and the Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index). The explanatory power of inequality is at least as important as conventionally accepted causes of corruption such as economic development. We also find a significant interaction effect between inequality and democracy, and evidence that inequality affects norms and perceptions about corruption, using the World Values Survey data. Since corruption also contributes to income inequality, societies often fall into vicious circles of inequality and corruption.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 22. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Assuming Personal Responsibility for Improving the Environment: Moving Toward a New Environmental Norm

There is general agreement that we are nearing the end of achieving major gains in pollution abatement from traditional sources, that a significant portion of the remaining environmental problems facing this country is caused by individual behavior, and that efforts to control that behavior have either failed or not even been made. The phenomenon of individuals as irresponsible environmental actors seems counterintuitive when polls show that people consistently rate protecting the environment among their highest priorities, contribute to environmental causes, and are willing to pay more to protect environmental resources. This article is the author\u27s second effort at understanding why people who consider themselves to be “environmentalists” or support environmental causes behave in environmentally destructive ways, and what, if anything, can be done to change that behavior. The first article endorsed expansion of the abstract environmental protection norm to include individual environmental responsibility and concluded that doing this is the most promising approach to overcoming barriers to behavioral change. That article also identified environmental groups as the most effective “norm entrepreneurs” that can bring about widespread change in personal environmental conduct through carefully tailored information campaigns. This article expands on the earlier article’s discussion of the role norms play in influencing personal behavior and why changing them is a critical part of any campaign to make individuals more environmentally responsible. The best way to change norms is through education, as the first article acknowledged, but supplemental measures may be necessary. This article identifies what those additional measures might be and assesses their effectiveness. A third article will explore how republican theory supports the critical role that education performs in altering public behavior through changing norms. All three articles rest on the premise that the global climate change crisis has created circumstances in which norm change can take place, namely the occurrence of a second environmental republican moment, in which people are open to being educated about their civic responsibilities, including those pertaining to the environment. To develop these ideas, section II provides background information about individual contributions to environmental problems. Section III discusses various barriers to changing personal environmental behavior, such as the role federal laws play in perpetuating the myth that only industry is responsible for environmental harm. That section also explores certain cognitive heuristics that influence how people process information and personal barriers to changing behavior such as habits, inconvenience, cost, unavailability of alternatives, and self-interest. The role of norms in influencing behavior and how norms are formed and changed are examined in section IV. Next, section V investigates how a new norm of environmental responsibility might arise and displace competing norms. However, that section recognizes that the development of a new norm may not be an easy task because of some of the same barriers identified in section III. In section VI, acknowledging that neither norms nor the happenstance of an environmental republican moment will inexorably lead to changes in personal behavior, various norm and behavior-changing tools, such as public education, shaming and other sanctions, and market-based incentives are identified. Section VI examines the inherent strengths and weaknesses of these tools, as well as particular problems with their application to individual behavior. Section VII concludes that no single approach will work, but a combination of any or all of the above, depending on the source and nature of the problem, is called for. However, any combination of tools must include public education if a permanent new environmental norm is to emerge and change individual behavior in the long term

Market Culture: How Norms Governing Exploding Offers Affect Market Performance

Many markets have organizations that influence or try to establish norms concerning when offers can be made, accepted and rejected. Examining a dozen previously studied markets suggests that markets in which transactions are made far in advance are markets in which it is acceptable for firms to make exploding offers, and unacceptable for workers to renege on commitments they make, however early. But this evidence is only suggestive, because the markets differ in many ways other than norms concerning offers. Laboratory experiments allow us to isolate the effects of exploding offers and binding acceptances. In a simple environment, in which uncertainty about applicants' quality is resolved over time, we find inefficient early contracting when firms can make exploding offers and applicants' acceptances are binding. Relaxing either of these two conditions causes matching to take place later, when more information about applicants' qualities is available, and consequently results in higher efficiency and fewer blocking pairs. This suggests that elements of market culture may play an important role in influencing market performance.

An Efforts to Prevent Juvenile Delinquency to Prepare the Nation's Successful Generation

This research aims to analysis the problems of teenagers who the next generation who will continue and realize the ideals of the nation. We are about to enter the Golden Indonesia in 2045, which will certainly be the era of today's youth. However, the rapid development of information technology has caused the problems and challenges faced by teenagers to become more severe and complex. The method used in the implementation of this community service activity is through lectures, showing pictures and videos, asking questions, and discussing. Those who cannot use it properly will fall into juvenile delinquency with behavior that deviates from societal norms, religious norms and ethics. The causes of juvenile delinquency are various, including lack of parental attention, lack of religious education, wrong associations, and mistakes in utilizing advances in information technology. The solution offered is to provide an understanding to the public about the causes of juvenile delinquency and its impact, the use of useful information technology, how to prevent juvenile delinquency, and directing the youth to carry out positive and beneficial activities for themselves, their families, and the environment

A Practical Conception of the Kantian Bifurcation

There is an ambition to conceive of the human being as a composite of perceptual and desiderative faculties belonging to a causal order and a rational faculty belonging to a normative order. The problem is that this conception is unstable: If we locate the perceptual/desiderative faculties in a causal order, no room is left for the rational faculty. Consequently, to conceive the human being in full, one must alternate between two different points of view. In this paper, I argue that the solution is to reevaluate how we think about causes and norms: To say something is determined by causes is not just to locate it within a causal order but is more fundamentally to exclude it from our evaluative practices. Further, to say something is constrained by norms is not just to identify a set of evaluative practices but is more fundamentally to include it in our evaluative practices