General Social Norms Research Articles

How norms shape the evolution of prosocial behaviour–compassion, universalizability, reciprocity and equity: a C.U.R.E for social dilemmas

How cooperation evolves and persists widely remains an open problem for improving humanity across domains ranging from climate change to pandemic response. To shed light on how behavioural norms can resolve social dilemmas around cooperation, we present a formal mathematical model of individuals’ decision making under general social norms, encompassing a variety of concerns and motivations an individual may have beyond simply maximizing their own payoff. Using the canonical Prisoner’s dilemma, we compare four norms: compassion, universalizability, reciprocity and equity, to determine which, if any, social forces can facilitate the evolution of cooperation. We analyse our model through a variety of limiting cases, including weak selection, low mutation and large population sizes. This is complemented by computer simulations of population dynamics via a Fisher process, which confirm our theoretical results. We find that the first two norms lead to the emergence of cooperation in a wide range of games, but the latter two cannot. Owing to our framework’s generality, it can be used to investigate many other norms, and how norms themselves evolve. Our work complements recent work on fair-minded learning dynamics and provides a useful bottom-up perspective into understanding the impact of top-down social norms on collective cooperative intelligence.

Religious foundations of duty

It is noted that, simultaneously with the emergence and development of human society, the presence of certain general rules in regulating the behavior of members of society arises. Social life at all stages of its development required the presence of such rules with which we humans could coordinate our behavior and actions and count on a certain predictable result from such behavior or actions. At various stages of the development of society, these or other social regulators become a tool for ensuring such a need. Historically, social norms formed under the influence of requirements and patterns of development of primitive society become the first social regulator. To a greater extent, such societies normalized their focus on the duties of the individual by installing a large number of prohibitions that required members of the society to refrain from undesirable behavior.
 It is indicated that with the complication and branching of social relations in society, general social norms support the impetus for further development and are differentiated in the following form of social regulators, in particular, morality, religion, and law. In our opinion, this order of progression of the development of social regulators is correct and natural. That is, initially the individual in the first society is aware of his responsibility to this or that social association, which is engaged in the creation of moral obligations. Gradually, certain beliefs appear in the primitive society, which contribute to the emergence of religious duties, which do not exclude moral positions, but complement them and values in interaction with them. And only with the appearance of the first state entities, we can talk about introducing obligations into the legal field with their further legal consolidation. It is important to note that in the pre-state period of human development, which occupies a sufficiently long period of time, duties developed outside the law and arose in accordance with human nature, customary norms, traditions, religious dogmas or moral ideas, based on the simplest rules of interpersonal interaction. All these factors - religion, morality, customs and traditions, to a greater or lesser extent changed their role in shaping the future idea of duties, that is why we consider it necessary to investigate the foundations of the institution of duty, in particular through the prism of religious influence.

Psychiatrists as forensic authorities: evaluation of dangerous habitual offenders in West Germany during the 1960s - the Helmut Hoinka case.

Preventive detention for highly dangerous habitual offenders has been in force in Germany for 90 years. The necessity of this measure is hotly debated from a legal perspective. However, the assignment of preventive detention is largely determined by the opinion of medical experts. This article discusses the role of medical experts and the issues they face in evaluating the dangerousness of habitual offenders using the case of the marriage swindler Helmut Hoinka, prosecuted several times in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s. Helmut Hoinka's case was chosen for analysis because of the rare opportunity to access detailed materials that allowed us to follow in detail the reasoning of the medical experts who evaluated Hoinka: medical reports stored in the Gerd Huber Archive at the University of Ulm, and Hoinka's court case from the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia. To examine these sources, we implemented the historical-critical method. The medical experts who evaluated Hoinka were aware of the defendant's criminal record prior to the evaluation, which was a source of bias. In addition, the criteria for classifying the offender as a dangerous habitual offender were open to a wide range of interpretations. Hoinka's high level of intelligence was negatively emphasized. Some test results were considered unreliable because it was assumed that Hoinka had manipulated his answers. Personal value judgments were allowed in assessing Hoinka's personality. Hoinka's criminal behavior was considered a medical symptom of psychopathy because it violated general moral and social norms. The medical reports of both experts showed that the psychiatrists believed in the genetic nature of psychopathy and criminal behavior. Their criminological prognosis was fully supported by the court in imposing the sentence. Challenges to Hoinka's criminological prognosis were the experts' personal biases, their belief in the theory of genetic predisposition to crime, the lack of clear criteria for antisocial personality disorder, and the absence of forensic recommendations for "psychopathic" criminals. The experts' opinion on Hoinka's criminal predisposition was crucial to the imposition of the sentence.

Community Perceptions on the Critical Success Factors of Hotels’ Community-Based Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper examines community as the consumer of community-related corporate social responsibility (CSR). It empirically investigates the critical success factors of CSR within the context of tourism from the community perspective because, for CSR activities that are targeted towards them, understanding their perspective could not be more necessary. The study narrowed the gap of knowledge by testing twelve critical success factors proposed in the literature on 267 target respondents in Langkawi, Malaysia and analysed the data using PLS. The sample was drawn using a qualifying question from communities known to have participated in previous hotel CSR activities. The findings revealed that, from a community standpoint, just four of the recommended twelve variables were crucial to the performance of community-related CSR in Langkawi’s hotel industry. These variables were general community development, law and social norms, project management committee, and financial preparedness. The findings provide theoretical as well as managerial implications, which are explained in the later sections of the paper.

The ethno-demographic context of declining birth rates and birth control in Eastern Serbia - an example of an atypical demographic transition

The restrictive reproductive model in Eastern Serbia, which appeared in pre- industrial rural society and without of sufficient development potential that would lead to the redefinition of ethical and general social norms, was in many ways similar to industrialized and urbanized societies. The expansive spread of the restricted model of reproduction was atypical in relation to the verme, place and conditions in which it appeared, and beyond all the theoretical postulates of the demographic transition. The paper analyzes the dynamics of change in both components of the natural population movement at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and considers the ethnodemographic, ecocultural and socioeconomic context of birth and mortality, which interrelationship indicates the stages of the demographic transition. In addition to objective problems related to the quality of statistical data, the regional demographic differentiation of changes in birth mortality rates indicates a certain correlation between the intensity of the decline in birth and the ethnic structure of the population.

The Tug-of-War Over Truth: A Foucauldian Case Study on the Interplay of Competing Discourses in Education

The present study applies a Foucauldian critical analytic to investigate competing discourses in education that are shown to be present in one public high school in the southern part of the United States. It is revealed how these discourses intersect and collide with each other to reinforce certain values, principles and practices, but eventually loosely coalesce along with other social interactions into general rules and social norms within the high school. It is found that technology itself represents a separate competing discourse with its own set of unique truths, goals, language and tools that both overlap and challenge other dominant discourses. Foucault’s concepts about power and governmentality provide the deductive design for data interpretation. Teacher and school administrator retellings are examined for signs of structures of thought and discursive truths that characterize ways of thinking that represent opposing points of views about the role of technology in education and its effect on defining the “right” way to teach. A framework is proposed for understanding and comparing the discourses based on their differing views of technology.

The Importance of Ethics And Social Responsibility In International Business

<p><em><strong>Ethics is defined as a person's beliefs about whether certain decisions, behaviors, or actions are right or wrong. Therefore what determines ethical behavior differs from one person to another. For example, someone who finds money on the floor of an empty house may believe it's perfectly fine to pick it up, while another may feel obligated to return it to the lost items section. The concept of ethical behavior usually refers to behavior that is accepted by general social norms. Unethical behavior is behavior that is not in accordance with general social norms. Ethical behavior in business is something that is important for the survival of the business itself. Businesses that do not have ethical behavior will be detrimental to the business itself, especially when viewed from a long-term perspective. A healthy business is not only a profitable business, but a healthy and good business is that in addition to being a profitable business, it is also a business that is morally good and has a sense of responsibility that can be implemented.</strong></em></p><p><strong> </strong><strong>Keywords: Business Ethics, Social Responsibility, International Business</strong></p><p> </p>

Exploring In-The-Moment Teaching Moves that Support Sociomathematical and General Social Norms in Dialogic Instruction

Exploring In-The-Moment Teaching Moves that Support Sociomathematical and General Social Norms in Dialogic Instruction

Organizational practices leading to closeting: the interactional construction of ‘closets’

ABSTRACT Goffman’s [1978. The presentation of self in everyday life. Harmondsworth] concept of ‘negative face’ recognizes people’s desire to be free from constraint. Freedom in expressing one’s identity, however, often gets threatened when that identity is marginalized. Using Brown and Levinson’s [1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press] framework, this paper examines negative face threats among employees who identify within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer spectrum (LGBTQ+). It asks how negative face threats play a role in ‘closeting’ their sexual and/or gender identity at work. Thematic analysis of data from 35 semi-structured interviews, representing myriad forms of self-identification among the LGBTQ+ community, produced two general themes: direct messages from co-workers prompting closeting, and more general social norms evident in co-worker communication and interactions. This study explores important interactional cues from co-workers that participants see as constraining a non-heterosexual and/or non-cis-gender identity. Implications for theory involving increased focus on negative face and practical applications involving cultivating workplace climate, ally support, and heightened sensitivity beyond the workplace are examined.

‘Stickiness’ of water-saving behaviours: What factors influence whether behaviours are maintained or given up?

Promoting adoption and maintenance of household water-saving behaviours is an important component of responding to water scarcity . While much research identifies what influences adoption of new behaviours, factors that support maintenance of these behaviours have rarely been examined. To address this, we surveyed a representative sample of Australian adults ( N = 4872) to explore how diverse behavioural, individual, and contextual characteristics influence behavioural maintenance. Participants were asked to rate how frequently they performed 11 water-saving behaviours. Using generalised linear mixed models, we compared behavioural and individual-level factors that differentiated between behaviours that were maintained (performed ‘often’ or ‘always’) and those discontinued (‘I used to but not anymore’). Factors associated with maintenance measured at the level of behaviour were context stability, stronger community perceptions of uptake (specific social norms), and lower community perceptions of physical effort. Factors associated with maintenance measured at the level of the individual included environmental identity, general water-saving social norms, water literacy, life satisfaction, presence of water-saving devices in home, experience of water restrictions, and living in an area with lower rainfall patterns. These findings indicate that the importance of behavioural, psychosocial, and contextual factors on maintenance of water saving behaviours and highlight diverse opportunities to intervene to strengthen community capacity to maintain these behaviours.

DISCUSSION ISSUES OF THE USE OF SOCIAL INTERNET NETWORKS IN EDUCATION

In article on materials of the analysis of scientific publications the main debatable questions use of social networks in education are formulated. The research optimum forms of use of social networks belongs to the first group of questions, the second group is made by the works devoted discussion of risks of introduction of networks in educational process, and the third group is formed by publications with the analysis of technical aspects. The analysis of the publications showed that the introduction of networks into the daily practices of students is growing, while the introduction of EIOS occurs at different rates. In this situation, it is necessary to take into account the views of students, the formation of skills of their behavior in the network space, since many functions of social networks can be successfully integrated into the EIOS, which will reduce the degree of risks associated with the use of public networks. On the other hand, for employees of educational institutions, the introduction of EIOS will create a system of General social norms and regulatory principles regulating the use of information technologies in the educational process.

FEATURES OF GENDER CULTURE EDUCATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOLCHILDREN

The article reveals the relevance of the study of the process of raising the younger schoolchildren’s gender culture. The development of the gender culture of boys and girls is due to the society that declares gender equality. But in real life there is a gender asymmetry of general social and family norms, stereotypes. The main directions of modern psychological and pedagogical researches on the problem of the formation of junior pupils’ gender education are considered. In the course of numerous studies it was observed that children of junior school age receive targeted gender education by creating a different educational environment for boys and girls that manifests itself in various aspects of the relationship between parents and children.Therefore, the criteria for the formation of a gender culture are determined: establishing the correct relationship between a boy and a girl; desire for mutual understanding; the presence of qualities peculiar for boys (men): courage, knight, nobility, hard work, ability to overcome difficulties, etc.; the presence of qualities peculiar for girls (women): kindness, femininity, sensitivity, softness, tolerance, care, love for children; the presence of honesty, sincerity, trust, loyalty, mercy, mutual help.The theoretical aspect of education of the gender culture in children as a prerequisite for the practical component of the process of education of this culture is presented. The role of parents and primary school teachers in the education of the gender culture in children is shown. Teachers in the education of the gender culture of children, apart from their sexual differences, need to have a clear idea of the integrative qualities of boys and girls, which is not always correctly interpreted by many parents. The article suggests orientations (directions and forms) of the joint activity of teachers and parents on the subject under study. For parents it is necessary to hold mini-lectures, discussions, conferences, which will help them to better understand the level of relations in their own family, to understand the essence of the concepts of “courage”, “femininity”, to come closer to the true understanding of these categories, to realize that the future family life of the younger generation depends on the level of the gender culture of children (in general, the culture of behavior).

Optimizing the influence of social norms interventions: Applying social identity insights to motivate residential water conservation

Social norms-based interventions offer a promising avenue to encourage proenvironmental behavior change. From a social identity perspective, it is argued that social norms communications will be maximally effective when they are tied to salient group memberships and supportive ingroup norms are communicated. Across four studies conducted in a water scarce region in England we demonstrate that a water conservation ingroup norms appeal encourages a shift in behavioral intentions and behavior. We provide initial evidence of the efficacy of the appeal against an information-only message (Study 1) and the mediating role of perceived ingroup norms (Study 2). Across two randomized control field trials, we find the appeal is more effective than a general social norms appeal (Study 3) and that sign-ups to a water-savings program significantly increase when the appeal is integrated into existing promotional materials (Study 4). We conclude by discussing how these insights can offer new perspectives on proenvironmental behavior change.

Social Environmental Correlates of Health Behaviors in a Faith-Based Policy and Environmental Change Intervention.

Diet and physical activity are behavioral risk factors for many chronic diseases, which are among the most common health conditions in the United States. Yet most Americans fall short of meeting established dietary and physical activity guidelines. Faith-based organizations as settings for health promotion interventions can affect members at multiple levels of the social ecological model. The present study investigated whether change in the church social environment was associated with healthier behavior at church and in general at 1-year follow-up. Six churches received mini-grants and technical assistance for 1 year to support policy and environmental changes for healthy eating (HE) and physical activity (PA). Socioenvironmental (social support and social norms) and behavioral (HE and PA at church and in general) outcomes were derived from baseline and 1-year follow-up church member surveys ( n = 258). Three of six churches demonstrated significant improvements in all three socioenvironmental aspects of HE. Two of five churches exhibited significant socioenvironmental improvements for PA at follow-up. Church social environmental changes were related to health behaviors at church and in general ( p < .05). Change in social support for HE, social support for PA, and social norms for PA were each associated with three church-based and general behavioral outcomes. Social norms for healthy eating were related to two general behavior outcomes and social norms for unhealthy eating to one general behavioral outcome. Study findings demonstrate that socioenvironmental characteristics are essential to multilevel interventions and merit consideration in designing policy and environmental change interventions.

The Flexibility of Fertility Preferences in a Context of Uncertainty.

The Flexibility of Fertility Preferences in a Context of Uncertainty.

Behavioural text message reminders to improve participation in cervical screening: a randomised controlled trial

BackgroundAbout 4500 lives are saved annually in England through cervical screening. If all eligible women participated regularly, 83% of cervical cancer deaths could be avoided. Between 2011 and 2016, age-appropriate coverage (ie, screening within the previous 3·5 years for women aged 24–49 years or 5 years for those aged 50–64) fell from 75·7% to 72·6% nationally, and from 69·5% to 66·7% in London. Recent evidence showed that text message reminders (SMS-R) improved participation in breast and bowel cancer screening, and that SMS-R message content affects clinic attendance. We tested the effect of modifying SMS-R content on cervical screening uptake (ie, attendance after invitation) in a low-coverage London borough. MethodsWomen aged 30 years and older, invited for screening from Feb 16, 2015, to Oct 5, 2015, were randomised (1:1:1:1:1:1:1 with a random number generator) to receive no SMS-R or one of six SMS-Rs: a simple reminder, general practice (GP) endorsement, total and proportional social norms messages (communicating screening rates of peers), and gain and loss-framed messages (lives saved and lives lost associated with participating in screening). Women aged 25–29 years were randomised (1:1) to no SMS-R or a GP-endorsed SMS-R. Recipients were masked to SMS-R content of other trial arms. The primary outcome was the proportion of women screened by 18 weeks, and analysis was by intention to treat with logistic regression, adjusted for age and Index of Multiple Deprivation decile. Ethics approval was obtained from South East Coast–Brighton & Sussex REC. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02363088. Findings1568, 1522, 1493, 1514, 1488, 1560, and 1507 women aged 30–64 years were allocated no SMS-R, a simple reminder, GP-endorsement, total social norms, proportional social norms, gain-framed SMS-R, and loss-framed SMS-R, respectively. The greatest difference in uptake was between no SMS-R (34·4%, n=540) and GP endorsement (38·4%, 575) (odds ratio 1·19, 95% CI 1·03–1·38; p=0·02), followed by the simple reminder (38·1%, 580) (1·18, 1·02–1·37; p=0·03). No overall significant difference between the control and other trial arms was observed. Participation among the 1453 and 1482 women aged 25–29 years randomised to no SMS-R or a GP endorsement was 26·4% (384) and 31·4% (466), respectively (1·29, 1·09–1·51; p=0·002). No harms were observed. InterpretationSMS-R messages improve cervical screening uptake. The behavioural sciences can inform the message content that has the biggest impact on screening participation. FundingImperial College Trust Charity, Public Health England

The low importance of marriage in eastern Germany - social norms and the role of peoples’ perceptions of the past

1. IntroductionIn almost all European countries, marriage rates have been declining since the 1960s and the share of non-marital births been rising for several decades (Perelli-Harris et al. 2010, 2012). This coincides with alternative partnership and living arrangements such as long-term cohabitation, single parenthood, childless marriages, living apart together, 'patchwork' families, and living alone becoming much more widespread (Sobotka and Toulemon 2008). In general, research in western, industrialized countries shown that traditional marriage become one option among many, and people are more often choosing other ways of pursuing their life goals (Beck-Gernsheim 1998, 2002). Research also shows that longer phases of cohabitation are preceding or even substituting for marriage. Faced with multiple choices of lifestyle and living arrangement -, with or without a partner, with or without - individual actors have to actively choose marriage over cohabitation (Thornton, Axinn, and Xie 2007). Many researchers have concluded that marriage can no longer be regarded as a self-evident and unquestioned institution, and that marriage has become less influential in delineating the relationships between men and the transition to adulthood, and the identity for men and women, and it has also become less relevant as a context for sexual expression, living arrangements, and the bearing and rearing of children (ibid.: 4).Eastern Germany, which was formerly the socialist state of the German Democratic Republic, is a special case of partnership change where the decoupling of marriage and childbearing is very advanced. Eastern Germany one of the world's highest percentages of non-marital births: in 2012 over 60% of births in eastern Germany were non-marital (see Section 3, and Nazio and Blossfeld 2003; Konietzka and Kreyenfeld 2002; Klusener and Kreyenfeld 2009; Klusener, Perelli-Harris, and Sanchez Gassen 2013; Kreyenfeld and Konietzka 2008). This extraordinarily high proportion of non-marital births is the reason why this region deserves a closer look.In the following, I will argue that common theoretical explanations for these trends that mainly focus on policies, laws, economics, and broader cultural changes such as value change need to be complemented with an agency approach that embeds individuals in a personal, social, and cultural context (see Section 2). This approach stresses that individuals' actions and decisions are framed by specific social norms. In accordance with the life course perspective, I also want to stress that actors' lives and decisions are interlinked with other peoples' lives: individuals' decisions about partnership formation, marriage, and cohabitation are influenced by the past and present experiences of their parents and significant others. This social, personal, and normative context of agency influences the meaning and decision-making of individual actors.Hence, I want to address the following questions in the case of eastern Germany: 1) what meanings do women and men in eastern Germany currently attach to marriage? 2) how are these meanings influenced by social norms and regional and cultural historical traditions? Addressing these questions will provide insight into how historical, social, and political context shape the social norms of marriage and non-marital childbearing that are relevant to individuals' decisions on marriage and alternative partnership arrangements.One way of studying social norms and the formation of meaning is the qualitative method of focus groups (see Section 4). In my paper I will present results from focus groups with 74 women and men aged 25-40, interviewed in Rostock, a city in the northern part of eastern Germany (see Section 4.1). The focus groups were conducted to elicit general social norms about marriage, cohabitation, and childbearing in order to explore the meaning of marriage in the eastern German context. …

Of Ambidexters and Daffidowndillies: Defamation of Lawyers, Legal Ethics, and Profession Reputation

Defamation has been a subject of considerable interest to legal historians. It did not become actionable in the royal courts until the early 16th century. As the secular cause of action for defamation developed, there were a number of actions instituted by lawyers. Defamation suits by lawyers accused of being ambidexters, the contemporary term for conflict of interest, constituted a large category of these lawyer defamation suits. Medieval discipline of lawyers for ambidexterity, a common form of lawyer misconduct, likely contributed to making these accusations actionable defamation. The purpose of this article is to study these defamation suits and their interrelationship with legal ethics, the public and professional images of lawyers, and professional reputation. The article is divided into three parts. The first part studies 45 early modern defamation cases involving accusations of lawyers of ambidexterity. The discussion analyzes the initial and evolving defamatory language and its judicial treatment. The cases show that accusing a lawyer of being an ambidexter was clearly and unequivocally actionable as defamation and that nothing was more defamatory than charging a lawyer with disloyalty to a client. Moreover, the word, ambidexter, signified substantial opprobrium. The second part studies public and professional images of lawyers to understand why such an accusation and the word, ambidexter, were so clearly defamatory and had such substantial stigma . This portion first discusses the concept of a disloyal lawyer by exploring the existence of a loyalty norm in the common learning and inherited wisdom of the contemporary legal profession and by studying late medieval and early modern religious ideas and discourse, contemporary literary images, and more general social and political norms. The analysis then turns to a study of the word, ambidexter. The discussion begins with a history of the word and its legal use and then explores its religious and literary uses. The second portion concludes that the concept of disloyalty and the word, ambidexter, appeared often with in the usages of legal system, in religious discourse, and to portray lawyers as characters in literary works. All these usages likely created in the social and political milieu a very perjorative image of the disloyal lawyer and the ambidexter. Thus, these images contribute to the association of accusations of ambidexterity with serious profession opprobrium and help explain why they were so clearly and significantly defamatory. The final portion of the article notes that cultural changes and legal developments in the 16th and 17th centuries made professional reputation especially vulnerable to attack. Attitudes toward honor, an increasing importance of reputation, and changes within the legal profession combined to create a climate conducive to defamation suits against lawyers and to explain the beneficial nature of these suits to those accused of ambidexterity.

The doping mindset—Part I: Implications of the Functional Use Theory on mental representations of doping

Doping is typically referred to by some legal/moral heuristics, labelling the activity illegal and unfair, and condemning doping users as cheats and rogues. Whilst these heuristics accurately reflect the general social norms and the official stance, qualitative research suggests that they may be in conflict with the way doping user athletes think, seeing doping as a morally questionable but effective means to achieving performance goals. Congruently, quantitative studies show that athletes’ mental representations of doping are more closely aligned with substances representing functionality than legality, and they follow the behavioural pathways athletes choose with regard to doping use and revealing information about it. As long as the dominant quantitative research paradigm follows the legal/moral route, the incongruence between reality and the faulty assumptions about reality limits the ecological validity of the research findings. This concept paper argues for progressing quantitative social cognition research with new models, measurement tools and methodologies that shift away from the dominance of moralistic frames. To facilitate this progress, two inter-related conceptual models are proposed. The first is an incremental-functional model of doping to reflect the motivated, goal-driven and progressive nature of athletes’ involvement in performance enhancing practices. The second is a model of an athlete doping mindset which conceptualises the link between the goal as performance enhancement and the functional and moral aspects of doping as purposive, goal-driven behaviour to enable empirical testing. Quantitative investigations into doping-related social cognition should capture the moral-functional duality and acknowledge functionality to make meaningful contributions to anti-doping efforts.

Academia.edu: Social network or Academic Network?

Academic social network sites Academia.edu and ResearchGate, and reference sharing sites Mendeley, Bibsonomy, Zotero, and CiteULike, give scholars the ability to publicize their research outputs and connect with each other. With millions of users, these are a significant addition to the scholarly communication and academic information‐seeking eco‐structure. There is thus a need to understand the role that they play and the changes, if any, that they can make to the dynamics of academic careers. This article investigates attributes of philosophy scholars on Academia.edu, introducing a median‐based, time‐normalizing method to adjust for time delays in joining the site. In comparison to students, faculty tend to attract more profile views but female philosophers did not attract more profile views than did males, suggesting that academic capital drives philosophy uses of the site more than does friendship and networking. Secondary analyses of law, history, and computer science confirmed the faculty advantage (in terms of higher profile views) except for females in law and females in computer science. There was also a female advantage for both faculty and students in law and computer science as well as for history students. Hence, Academia.edu overall seems to reflect a hybrid of scholarly norms (the faculty advantage) and a female advantage that is suggestive of general social networking norms. Finally, traditional bibliometric measures did not correlate with any Academia.edu metrics for philosophers, perhaps because more senior academics use the site less extensively or because of the range informal scholarly activities that cannot be measured by bibliometric methods.