Human Social Norms Research Articles

Human and nonhuman norms: a dimensional framework.

Human communities teem with a variety of social norms. In order to change unjust and harmful social norms, it is crucial to identify the psychological processes that give rise to them. Most researchers take it for granted that social norms are uniquely human. By contrast, we approach this matter from a comparative perspective, leveraging recent research on animal social behaviour. While there is currently only suggestive evidence for norms in nonhuman communities, we argue that human social norms are likely produced by a wide range of mechanisms, many of which we share with nonhuman animals. Approaching this variability from a comparative perspective can help norm researchers expand and reframe the range of hypotheses they test when attempting to understand the causes of socially normative behaviours in humans. First, we diagnose some of the theoretical obstacles to developing a comparative science of social norms, and offer a few basic constructs and distinctions to help norm researchers overcome these obstacles. Then we develop a six-dimensional model of the psychological and social factors that contribute to variability in both human and potential nonhuman norms. This article is part of the theme issue 'Social norm change: drivers and consequences'.

Utilizing Human Social Norms for Multimodal Trajectory Forecasting via Group-Based Forecasting Module

Trajectory forecasting to generate plausible pedestrian trajectories in crowded scenes requires an understanding of human-human social interactions. Groups of pedestrians with the social norm move along similar trajectories, while groups of pedestrians with different norms make changes to their trajectories to avoid a collision. This paper introduces a group-based forecasting module for modeling inter- and intra-group interactions to enable an understanding of the social norm of humans for trajectory forecasting. In addition, group-based forecasting module takes the trajectory predicted by another prospection module as input to consider potential interactions with other groups in the future. In this way, our method models the complex group-level social interactions in crowded scenes through the attention mechanism and predicts socially plausible trajectories in accordance with each social norm. Comparisons we conducted with state-of-the-art forecasting methods show the effectiveness of our approach on three publicly available crowd datasets (ETH, UCY, and SDD). From experimental results, our network enables to predict plausible social trajectories by introducing two forecasting modules.

Reliable, Robust, Accurate and Real-Time 2D LiDAR Human Tracking in Cluttered Environment: A Social Dynamic Filtering Approach

Reliable, robust, accurate, and real-time human tracking is essential for mobile robots and intelligent vehicles in real-life applications. 2D LiDAR is considered as the standard sensor for mobile robot navigation as well as human detection and tracking due to its low-cost and usability. However, 2D range limitation and occlusion caused by obstacles, especially dynamic human environments, make it less reliable, robust and accurate for human tracking. This letter introduces a new method for increasing the quality of 2D LiDAR human tracking in cluttered and crowded environments. We combined human content presented by Hall's Proxemics model with the global nearest neighbor to improve accuracy of scan-to-track data association of leg detection. Social dynamic confidence ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">SDC</i> ) factor is generated based on features of human social norms, dynamic metrics and consistency developed in the detection stage. As a result, our proposed method improved multi-object tracking accuracy and runtime 24% and 45%, respectively, against the state-of-the-art <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">joint-leg-tracker</i> technique in crowded and cluttered environments.

Emotion expressions shape human social norms and reputations

SummaryThe emergence of pro-social behaviors remains a key open challenge across disciplines. In this context, there is growing evidence that expressing emotions may foster human cooperation. However, it remains unclear how emotions shape individual choices and interact with other cooperation mechanisms. Here, we provide a comprehensive experimental analysis of the interplay of emotion expressions with two important mechanisms: direct and indirect reciprocity. We show that cooperation in an iterated prisoner's dilemma emerges from the combination of the opponent's initial reputation, past behaviors, and emotion expressions. Moreover, all factors influenced the social norm adopted when assessing the action of others — i.e., how their counterparts' reputations are updated – thus, reflecting longer-term consequences. We expose a new class of emotion-based social norms, where emotions are used to forgive those that defect but also punish those that cooperate. These findings emphasize the importance of emotion expressions in fostering, directly and indirectly, cooperation in society.

A collision avoidance scheme for autonomous vehicles inspired by human social norms

This paper introduces the novel idea of using human social norms and human emotions to improve the collision avoidance of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). Until now, the literature has been concerned with theoretical debates regarding ethical issues connected to AVs, while no practical steps have yet been undertaken. This paper introduces the concept of an artificial society of AVs with different personalities and with social norms coded into their autopilot so that they act like well-behaved drivers. For proof of concept, the standard agent modelling tool Netlogo is utilized to simulate the artificial society of AVs. Furthermore, comparisons are made with random walk-based non-social-based collision avoidance techniques. Extensive testing has been carried out using the behaviour space tool to determine the performance of the proposed approach regarding the number of collisions. A comparative study undertaken with a random walk method indicates that the proposed approach provides a better option for tailoring the autopilots of future AVs, while also promising to be more socially acceptable and trustworthy regarding safe road travel.

Chimpanzees' Bystander Reactions to Infanticide: An Evolutionary Precursor of Social Norms?

Social norms-generalized expectations about how others should behave in a given context-implicitly guide human social life. However, their existence becomes explicit when they are violated because norm violations provoke negative reactions, even from personally uninvolved bystanders. To explore the evolutionary origin of human social norms, we presented chimpanzees with videos depicting a putative norm violation: unfamiliar conspecifics engaging in infanticidal attacks on an infant chimpanzee. The chimpanzees looked far longer at infanticide scenes than at control videos showing nut cracking, hunting a colobus monkey, or displays and aggression among adult males. Furthermore, several alternative explanations for this looking pattern could be ruled out. However, infanticide scenes did not generally elicit higher arousal. We propose that chimpanzees as uninvolved bystanders may detect norm violations but may restrict emotional reactions to such situations to in-group contexts. We discuss the implications for the evolution of human morality.

Bonobos Share with Strangers

Humans are thought to possess a unique proclivity to share with others – including strangers. This puzzling phenomenon has led many to suggest that sharing with strangers originates from human-unique language, social norms, warfare and/or cooperative breeding. However, bonobos, our closest living relative, are highly tolerant and, in the wild, are capable of having affiliative interactions with strangers. In four experiments, we therefore examined whether bonobos will voluntarily donate food to strangers. We show that bonobos will forego their own food for the benefit of interacting with a stranger. Their prosociality is in part driven by unselfish motivation, because bonobos will even help strangers acquire out-of-reach food when no desirable social interaction is possible. However, this prosociality has its limitations because bonobos will not donate food in their possession when a social interaction is not possible. These results indicate that other-regarding preferences toward strangers are not uniquely human. Moreover, language, social norms, warfare and cooperative breeding are unnecessary for the evolution of xenophilic sharing. Instead, we propose that prosociality toward strangers initially evolves due to selection for social tolerance, allowing the expansion of individual social networks. Human social norms and language may subsequently extend this ape-like social preference to the most costly contexts.

Evolutionary precursors of social norms in chimpanzees: a new approach

Moral behaviour, based on social norms, is commonly regarded as a hallmark of humans. Hitherto, humans are perceived to be the only species possessing social norms and to engage in moral behaviour. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting their presence in chimpanzees, but systematic studies are lacking. Here, we examine the evolution of human social norms and their underlying psychological mechanisms. For this, we distinguish between conventions, cultural social norms and universal social norms. We aim at exploring whether chimpanzees possess evolutionary precursors of universal social norms seen in humans. Chimpanzees exhibit important preconditions for their presence and enforcement: tolerant societies, well-developed social-cognitive skills and empathetic competence. Here, we develop a theoretical framework for recognizing different functional levels of social norms and distinguish them from mere statistical behavioural regularities. Quasi social norms are found where animals behave functionally moral without having moral emotions. In proto social norms, moral emotions might be present but cannot be collectivized due to the absence of a uniquely human psychological trait, i.e. shared intentionality. Human social norms, whether they are universal or cultural, involve moral emotions and are collectivized. We will discuss behaviours in chimpanzees that represent potential evolutionary precursors of human universal social norms, with special focus on social interactions involving infants. We argue that chimpanzee infants occupy a special status within their communities and propose that tolerance towards them might represent a proto social norm. Finally, we discuss possible ways to test this theoretical framework.

Affective social robots

For human–robot interaction to proceed in a smooth, natural manner, robots must adhere to human social norms. One such human convention is the use of expressive moods and emotions as an integral part of social interaction. Such expressions are used to convey messages such as “I’m happy to see you” or “I want to be comforted,” and people’s long-term relationships depend heavily on shared emotional experiences. Thus, we have developed an affective model for social robots. This generative model attempts to create natural, human-like affect and includes distinctions between immediate emotional responses, the overall mood of the robot, and long-term attitudes toward each visitor to the robot, with a focus on developing long-term human–robot relationships. This paper presents the general affect model as well as particular details of our implementation of the model on one robot, the Roboceptionist. In addition, we present findings from two studies that demonstrate the model’s potential.