At the moment the planet has more than 7 billion people.It is difficult to imagine, but where some people still eat each other, somewhere there is slavery in the truest sense of the word and ritual murder.In our modern society, where even push the other person must necessarily be accompanied by an apology from both sides, it seems wild and uncivilized.What prevents us from killing each other?To answer this question it is necessary to consider the function of social norms.
Social norms, in simple terms, it is the rules that each member of society lives.To understand the definition and function of social norms, consider one of the experiments.Mr. Garfinkel has offered its students to behave in society outside the box.For example, while shopping in the store, the students do not take products off the shelf, and baskets from other buyers paid for a home dinner and constantly demanded explanations issues in a friendly conversation.As a rule, people have violated the background waiting, and they did not know how to adequately and properly respond to such strange behavior.
Social norms allow you to integrate into society, give it a set of rules and actions for which to live, so as not to cause any suspicion, and start dating.Often we automatically say "thank you" to the courtesy of a person when greeting extend a hand to the man, but not a woman.So, the first function of social norms - is the integration into society and the regulation of its growing and living in it.
But not all people recognize the rules of the game.Within every society there are many subcultures and kontrkultr.The former include the protesters punks and skinheads, hippies and rappers to smoke, and to the second culture - terrorists and prostitutes.Prevention and elimination of such deviant (deviant) behavior - it is also a function of social norms.Since childhood, society in all its majesty on television and posters, from the pages of books, speeches through relatives and friends tell us how to act and what to watch out for.As a child, we believe everything we say credible people.Through the above-mentioned agents we absorb these social norms.Terms of influence and suggest us the way out of the ordinary situations, saving our time.They form patterns and background expectations violations which we have mentioned, describing the experiment Garfinkel.That is the last function is the formation of social norms of acceptable behaviors.
for general development and understanding of the function of social norms in a society, we advise watch performances of great comedians like George Carlin, Joe Rogan, Ellen Dedzheneras and Dylan Moran.In their speeches, they make fun of comedic and whimsical outdated rules of the games in the community, which we repeat every day without a second thought.
functions of social norms can have a "disservice" turning dysfunctions and deviations.Standing request consumer ideology to buy more and more of a negative impact on the environment and psychological well-being of society.To avoid this social genocide, you need a lot of reading and develop critical thinking.
