社会规范的动态过程

社会心理学的经典研究将社会规范区分为描述性规范与指令性规范。近年来, 研究者从以往对社会规范的静态区分, 开始深入研究社会规范“如何发展变化”的动态过程, 即探究社会规范的习得、传播与转变过程, 以及社会规范发挥作用的影响因素。社会规范的习得可以追溯至童年早期的社会互动, 描述性规范的形成是个体在社会网络中学习社会范畴典型范例的过程, 对现状的合理化催生了描述性规范向指令性规范的转化。社会规范发挥作用也呈现动态性, 不仅与社会规范的心理功能相关, 即遵守或违反社会规范能满足个体的安全感、归属感、独特感需要等, 还与外部环境如权力位置、惩罚机制相关。未来研究可对社会规范形成过程、作用过程做进一步分析; 结合社会规范强度研究, 深入探讨规范性影响的作用过程; 开展文化情境下的社会规范研究等。     

Deference in Indians' decision making: introjected goals or injunctive norms?

We examine the claim that Indians are more likely than Americans to act deferentially in the presence of authority figures and explore 2 possible psychological mechanisms for this cultural difference: introjected goals and injunctive norms. Studies 1 and 2 showed that after reflecting upon an authority's expectations, Indians were more likely than Americans to make clothing and course choices consistent with the authority's expectations, but there was no such cultural difference for peers' expectations. Study 3 showed that merely activating the concept of authority figures, without highlighting specific expectations, was sufficient to influence Indians' choices but not their evaluations. Examining a more basic distinction underlying introjected goals versus injunctive norms, Study 4 showed that authority primes influenced Indians' sense of what they should do but not what they want to do. Study 5 showed that, inconsistent with the internalized goal mechanism, the effect of explicit authority primes did not increase after brief delays. However, Indian participants who were less likely to accommodate to the salient authority experienced more guilt across delay conditions, which supported the injunctive norms mechanism. The findings suggest that manipulating injunctive norms can be an effective means for inducing or eliminating deferential behaviors in Indian settings.