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Social Norms: Internalization, Persuasion, and History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Amitai Etzioni
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Abstract

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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

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.

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