Norms in Sociological Theory

Norms in the Wild (2017) by Christina Bicchieri

• Policy and human rights implications of norms and why/why not interventions to change norms succeed or fail
• There are a range of areas in this: mainly social norms, but also customs and 'descriptive norms'
• Some behaviours are collective and independent, whilst others are collective but also interdependent 
• Pluralistic ignorance - individuals believing that their actions are driven by different drivers than those of other people (though they are actually driven by the same) when the behaviours are the same of other people
• Social norms are driven by social expectation and others actions and beliefs and interactions, whilst descriptive norms are driven only by "empirical expectations"

• How we measure social norms is important, and we should measure them…