Norms, status and groups
| English | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| norms | 社会规范 | shè huì guī fàn |
| status | 地位 | dì wèi |
| ascribed status | 先赋地位 | xiān fù dì wèi |
| achieved status | 自致地位 | zì zhì dì wèi |
| institution | 制度 | zhì dù |
| group behaviour | 群体行为 | qún tǐ xíng wéi |
The rules nobody wrote down
- Norms 社会规范 are the unwritten rules of a group: how close you stand, whether you interrupt, what counts as late.
- You cannot see your own until someone breaks one, which is why the feeling of "that was rude" is data.
- Most of social life runs on norms rather than on rules, and none of it is written anywhere.
How do you make a norm visible?
The reaction is the only observable trace the rule leaves, which is why breaching is a classic method.
Status
- Status 地位 is a position in a group, and it comes in two kinds.
- Ascribed status 先赋地位 is given: age, family, where you were born.
- Achieved status 自致地位 is earned: a qualification, a job, a place on a team.
- Societies differ in how much weight they give each, and that difference is one of the most researchable things in the unit.
Match each status to its kind.
Given against earned. Societies differ in how much weight they give each.
Groups and institutions
- Group behaviour 群体行为 differs from individual behaviour, and people take more risks or fewer in groups than alone.
- An institution 制度 is a pattern of behaviour stable enough to outlive the individuals in it: the family, the school, the law, the media.
- Institutions are how norms are transmitted, which is what connects this unit back to socialisation.
What makes something an institution in this sense?
The family and the media both qualify, and neither is a building or a law.
A norm made visible.
Stand facing the back wall of a lift. Nobody has broken a rule, nothing is unsafe, and no one can say which law was violated.
But everyone in the lift feels it, and most will change their own behaviour in response.
That discomfort with no rule behind it is the evidence that a norm exists — and deliberately breaking a small one is a classic method for demonstrating them.
Describe a harmless way to reveal a norm about queueing.
Example: "Leave a two-metre gap in front of you in a queue and record how long before someone comments or fills it."
A norm is invisible until it is broken. That is not a limitation of the method; it is the method. Social science studies the reaction, because the reaction is the only observable trace the rule leaves.
Any norm-breaking demonstration is acceptable because no law is broken.
Legality is not the standard. A study that distresses or alarms anyone fails whatever it shows.
Do not run a norm-breaking demonstration that could distress or endanger anyone. Face the wrong way in a lift, not anything that alarms a stranger — the ethics of the previous lesson apply in full, and a study that upsets participants fails whatever it shows.