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The Evolution of Social Norms
Open accessAbstract
Social norms are patterns of behavior that are self-enforcing within a group: Everyone conforms, everyone is expected to conform, and everyone wants to conform when they expect everyone else to conform. Social norms are often sustained by multiple mechanisms, including a desire to coordinate, fear of being sanctioned, signaling membership in a group, or simply following the lead of others. This article shows how stochastic evolutionary game theory can be used to study the resulting dynamics. I illustrate with a variety of examples drawn from economics, sociology, demography, and political science. These include bargaining norms, norms governing the terms of contracts, norms of retirement, dueling, foot binding, medical treatment, and the use of contraceptives. These cases highlight the challenges of applying the theory to empirical cases. They also show that the modern theory of norm dynamics yields insights and predictions that go beyond conventional equilibrium analysis.
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“Research in this area suggests that pro-environmental norms can emerge and evolve as a result of individuals aligning their behavior with societal expectations (Young, 2015)”
From Orchestrating a smart circular economy: Guiding principles for digital product passports (2023) · cites this paper as Young, 2015
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Metadata
- Authors
- Young, H. P.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Young, H. Peyton
- ORCID
- Young, H. Peyton
- Venue
- Annual Review of Economics
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2015-08-01
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 359-387
- ISSN
- 1941-1383 (ISSN-L)
- 1941-1391
- OpenAlex
- W2112082685
- Cited by
- 497
- References
- 156
- Citations by year
- 2026: 47 · 2025: 71 · 2024: 73 · 2023: 67 · 2022: 49 · 2021: 56 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 4
- FWCI
- 8.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Annual Review of Economics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Theory and Institutions
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- social norms, norm dynamics, evolutionary game theory, coordination, sanctioning, signaling, conformity, contract terms, dueling, foot binding, medical treatment, contraceptive use
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