Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T04:36:09.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social Norms: Internalization, Persuasion, and History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Amitai Etzioni
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

At issue in the debate over social norms are different conceptions of human nature and the social order, of the ways people behave, and of the ways the law can both modify and be modified by social conduct. Three interpretive frameworks to the discussion of social norms are discussed: (a) whether social norms affect individual behavior merely as environmental/external factors or whether they also shape people's intrinsic predispositions; (b) the specific process by which norms influence people (i.e., whether preferences are considered predetermined or assumed to be modifiable as a result of internalization and persuasion); and (c) the ways social norms themselves are formed (whether merely via rational choice or also through historical transmissions). It is concluded that the discussion of social norms within a legal context is enriched by considering a “law and socio-economics” model, which combines the law and economics and law and society perspectives into a single discipline.

Type
Symposium on Norms, Law, and Order in the City
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , 2000 , pp. 157 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Law and Society Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am indebted to comments on a previous draft by Eric Posner and Robert Ellickson, and to Natalie Klein for numerous editorial suggestions. I would also like to note that Tracy Meares and Dan Kahan's 1998 article “Law and (Norms of) Order in the Inner City,” 32 Law & Society Rev. 805, reached me after this article was submitted for publication.

References

Axelrod, Robert (1984) The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S., & Murphy, Kevin M. (1996) “A Theory of Rational Addiction,” in Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1996) “Habits, Addictions, and Traditions,” in Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1996) “Norms and the Formation of Preferences,” in Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Black, Donald (1976) The Behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark (1976) “The Empirical Status of Human Capital Theory: A Slightly Jaundiced Survery,” 14 J. of Economic Literature 837.Google Scholar
Chong, Dennis (1996) “Values Versus Interests in the Explanation of Social Conflict,” 144 Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 2079. Communitarian Bibliography. Available at http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/biblio.htmlGoogle Scholar
Cooter, Robert D. (1993) “Book Review: Against Legal Centrism,” 81 California Law Rev. 417.Google Scholar
Cooter, Robert D. (1995) “Law and Unified Social Theory,” 22 J. of Law & Society 50.Google Scholar
Cooter, Robert D. (1996) “Decentralized Law for a Complex Economy: The Structural Approach to Adjudicating the New Law Merchant,” 144 Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 1643.Google Scholar
Cooter, Robert D. (1997) “Normative Failure Theory of Law,” 82 Cornell Law Rev. 947.Google Scholar
Davis, Kingsley (1949) Human Society. New York: Macmillan Co.Google Scholar
Ellickson, Robert (1991) Order Without Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ellickson, Robert (1998) “Law and Economics Discovers Social Norms,” 27 J. of Legal Studies 537.Google Scholar
Epstein, Richard (summer 1997) “Enforcing Norms: When the Law Gets in the Way,” 7 The Responsive Comminity 4.Google Scholar
Etzioni, Amitai (1988) The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Etzioni, Amitai (1996) The New Golden Rule. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence (1975) The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton (1953) “The Methodology of Positive Economics,” in Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Galbraith, John Kenneth (1967) The New Industrial State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Mark C. Childrearing Antecedents of Moral Internalization. Unpublished manuscript, on file with the author.Google Scholar
Kahan, Dan (1997) “Social Influence, Social Meaning, and Deterrence,” 83 Virginia Law Rev. 349.Google Scholar
Kidder, Robert L. (1983) Connecting Law and Society: An Introduction to Research Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Kohlberg, Lawrence “Moral Development,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. USA: Macmillan Co. and Free Press, 1968: 483–494.Google Scholar
Kohlberg, Lawrence (1976) “Moral Stages and Moralization,” in Moral Development and Behavior: Theory, Research, and Social Issues. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Leontief, Wassily (March/April 1985) “Interview: Why Economics Needs Input-Output Analysis,” Challenge, 27.Google Scholar
Lessig, Lawrence (1995) “The Regulation of Social Meaning,” Univ. of Chicago Law Rev. 62 (1995); 943.Google Scholar
Lewis, Alan (1982) The Psychology of Taxation. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Lindbloom, Charles (1965) The Intelligence of Democracy: Decision Making Through Mutual Adjustment. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
McAdams, Richard (1997) “The Origin, Development, and Regulations of Norms,” 96 Michigan Law Rev. 338.Google Scholar
Meares, Tracey (1997) “Drugs: It's a Question of Connections,” 31 Valparaiso Univ. Law Rev. 579.Google Scholar
North, Douglas C. (1981) Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott (1937) The Structure of Social Action. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Eric (1996) “Law, Economics, and Inefficient Norms,” 144 Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 1697.Google Scholar
Read, Piers Paul (1974) Alive: the Story of the Andes Survivors. Philadelphia: Lippincott.Google Scholar
Rosen, Jeffrey (1997) “The Social Police,” 73 (20-27 October) The New Yorker 170–181.Google Scholar
Sampson, R.J. et al., (1997) “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy,” August Science 918.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. (1991) The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society. Knoxville, Tenn.: Whittle Brooks.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya (1977) “Rational Fools,” 6 Philosophy & Public Affairs 317.Google Scholar
Shiler, Robert (1984) “Stock Prices and Social Dynamics,” in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert (1976) Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision Making Processes in Administrative Organization, 3rd Ed. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Stern, Paul C. & Aronson, Elliot, eds. (1984) Energy Use: The Human Dimension. New York: W.H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Stigler, George & Becker, Gary (1977) “De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum,” 67 American Economic Rev. 76.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass (1996) “Social Norms and Social Roles,” 96 Columbia Law Rev. 903.Google Scholar
Thurow, Lester (1980) The Zero-Sum Society: Distribution and the Possibilities for Economic Change. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Tullock, Gordon (1970) Private Wants, Public Means; an Economic Analysis of the Desirable Scope of Government. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wildavsky, Aaron (1989) “Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation,” 81 American Political Science Rev. 3.Google Scholar
Wrong, Dennis (1961) “Oversocialized Concept of Man in Sociology,” 26 American Sociological Rev. 183.Google Scholar