Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies

An Author Correction to this article: DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22955-x.Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.Peer reviewe

Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries

Data availability: The data generated in this study have been deposited in the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/STKFR). Non-experimental data included in our datasets (i.e., intensity of government response to COVID-19 is the Stringency Index, COVID-19 deaths and cases per million) are taken from the Oxford COVID−19 Government Response Tracker [22 Hale, T. et al. A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID−19 Government Response Tracker). Nat. Human Behav. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01079-8 (2021).] and Our World in Data [38 Ritchie, H. et al. Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19). Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus (2020).] (downloaded November 2020). Wave 0 data are from [3 Gelfand, M. J. et al. Differences between tight and loose cultures: a 33-nation study. Science 332, 1100–1104 (2011).[ and Wave 1 data are from [5 Eriksson, K. et al. Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies. Nat. Commun. 12, 1481 (2021).].Code availability: The survey and analysis code are available at the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/STKFR).Supplementary information is available online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44999-5#Sec40 .The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat.Knut and Wallenberg Grant “How do human norms form and change?” 2016.0167. (G.An.). The Swedish Research Council grant “Norms & Risk: Do social norms help dealing with collective threats” 2021-06271 (G.An.). Ministero dell’Istruzione dell’Università e della Ricerca, PRIN 2017, prot. 20178TRM3F (D.B.). Universidad de Los Andes, Fondo Vicerrectoría de Investigaciones (J.-C.C.). Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Hungary, National Research, Development and Innovation Fund NKFIH-OTKA K135963 (M.F.). Grant 23-061770 S of the Czech Science Foundation (M.H. and S.G.). RVO: 68081740 of the Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences (M.H. and S.G.). RA Science Committee, research project N.20TTSH-070 (A.Gr. and N.Khac.). Open University of Israel, 511687 (R.N.). HSE University Basic Research Program (E.O.). Project BASIC (PID2022-141802NB-I00) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe” (A.Sá.). US Army Research Office Grant W911NF-19-1-910281 (B.S.). Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, 019.183SG.001 (E.S.). Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, VI.Veni.201 G.013 (E.S.). European Commission, Horizon 2020-ID 870827 (E.S.). UKRI Grant “Secret Power” No. EP/X02170X/1 awarded under the European Commission’s “European Research Council - STG” Scheme (G.A.T.)

Anger and disgust shape judgments of social sanctions across cultures, especially in high individual autonomy societies

Data availability; The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Center for Open Science repository, https://osf.io/djnfg/.Supplementary Information is available online at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s41598-024-55815-x#Sec17 .When someone violates a social norm, others may think that some sanction would be appropriate. We examine how the experience of emotions like anger and disgust relate to the judged appropriateness of sanctions, in a pre-registered analysis of data from a large-scale study in 56 societies. Across the world, we find that individuals who experience anger and disgust over a norm violation are more likely to endorse confrontation, ostracism and, to a smaller extent, gossip. Moreover, we find that the experience of anger is consistently the strongest predictor of judgments of confrontation, compared to other emotions. Although the link between state-based emotions and judgments may seem universal, its strength varies across countries. Aligned with theoretical predictions, this link is stronger in societies, and among individuals, that place higher value on individual autonomy. Thus, autonomy values may increase the role that emotions play in guiding judgments of social sanctions.This research was funded by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond) [P17-0030:1]. The contribution of J.W was supported by CAS Youth Innovation Promotion Association and fundings from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y5CX052003 and E2CX3315CX). The contributions of M.H and S.G. for the Czech part of research was supported by a Grant 23-061770S of the Czech Science Foundation and by RVO: 68081740 of the Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences. Open access funding provided by Linköping University

Gendered self-views across 62 countries: a test of competing models

Social role theory posits that binary gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in less egalitarian countries, reflecting these countries’ more pronounced sex-based power divisions. Conversely, evolutionary and self-construal theorists suggest that gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in more egalitarian countries, reflecting the greater autonomy support and flexible self-construction processes present in these countries. Using data from 62 countries (N = 28,640), we examine binary gender gaps in agentic and communal self-views as a function of country-level objective gender equality (the Global Gender Gap Index) and subjective distributions of social power (the Power Distance Index). Findings show that in more egalitarian countries, gender gaps in agency are smaller and gender gaps in communality are larger. These patterns are driven primarily by cross-country differences in men’s self-views and by the Power Distance Index (PDI) more robustly than the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI). We consider possible causes and implications of these findings

Anger and disgust shape judgments of social sanctions across cultures, especially in high individual autonomy societies

When someone violates a social norm, others may think that some sanction would be appropriate. We examine how the experience of emotions like anger and disgust relate to the judged appropriateness of sanctions, in a pre-registered analysis of data from a large-scale study in 56 societies. Across the world, we find that individuals who experience anger and disgust over a norm violation are more likely to endorse confrontation, ostracism and, to a smaller extent, gossip. Moreover, we find that the experience of anger is consistently the strongest predictor of judgments of confrontation, compared to other emotions. Although the link between state-based emotions and judgments may seem universal, its strength varies across countries. Aligned with theoretical predictions, this link is stronger in societies, and among individuals, that place higher value on individual autonomy. Thus, autonomy values may increase the role that emotions play in guiding judgments of social sanctions

Perceptions of Emotional Functionality: Similarities and Differences Among Dignity, Face, and Honor Cultures

Emotions are linked to wide sets of action tendencies, and it can be difficult to predict which specific action tendency will be motivated or indulged in response to individual experiences of emotion. Building on a functional perspective of emotion, we investigate whether anger and shame connect to different behavioral intentions in dignity, face, and honor cultures. Using simple animations that showed perpetrators taking resources from victims, we conducted two studies across eleven countries investigating the extent to which participants expected victims to feel anger and shame, how they thought victims should respond to such violations, and how expectations of emotions were affected by enacted behavior. Across cultures, anger was associated with desires to reclaim resources or alert others to the violation. In face and honor cultures, but not dignity cultures, shame was associated with the desire for aggressive retaliation. However, we found that when victims indulged motivationally-relevant behavior, expected anger and shame were reduced and satisfaction increased in similar ways across cultures. Results suggest similarities and differences in expectations of how emotions functionally elicit behavioral responses across cultures