April 2025
- Apr 28, 2025CultureAnonymity Effects ExplainedLapidot-Lefler and Barak separated three things that normally travel together online, using a 2x2x2 design published in Computers in Human Behavior in 2012: concealed identity, invisibility, and absence of eye contact. Lack of eye contact predicted toxic disinhibition more strongly than anonymity alone. That fits John Suler's point that anonymity removes social constraints rather than creating behavior, releasing candid disclosure and cruelty alike.
- Apr 28, 2025CultureWhat Are Social Norms? Governing Behavior in SocietyShared expectations enforced by approval rather than law. Bicchieri defines a norm as a rule people follow when they believe others follow it and believe others expect them to. Cialdini's Petrified Forest field experiment showed the cost of getting this wrong: describing theft as common raised it 8 percent, while an injunctive request reduced it. Gelfand's 33-nation study found ecological threat history predicted norm tightness better than culture or religion.
- Apr 24, 2025CultureUnderstanding Norm Violations: Social Rule BreaksSociology students sent to face the wrong way in an elevator or bargain in a department store get a consistent result: staring, confrontation, discomfort out of all proportion to the harm done. Harold Garfinkel's breach experiments show we follow unwritten rules automatically and enforce them reflexively, experiencing them as how things are done. Sumner's three levels, folkways, mores and taboos, carry sharply different penalties.
August 2024
August 2022
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