Norm internalization and the cognitive mechanism of cultural consonance

Abstract

Human societies are unique in that our behavior is regulated by learned norms and influenced by cultural standards. The present article addresses one of the aspects of how normative culture affects individual's mental life. This study specifically examined the role of norm internalization in cultural consonance and individual psychological flourishing. The data, collected in New England in the winter of 2012, contained measures of individual's (n = 189) knowledge about a cultural model of a good, worthy life, the degree of internalization of the corresponding normative ideas, and self-reported information about each informant's lifestyle and individual mental health status. The results suggest that while stronger internalizers tend to have slightly better levels of psychological flourishing on average, they also suffer greater losses in positive mental health when they think that they are not conforming to the norms embedded in a cultural model.