Violation Of Social Norms Research Articles

The identification of social norms of price discrimination on the internet

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify some of the current social norms of pricing that constrain sellers' discriminatory pricing on the internet. Violations of such social norms can lead to perceptions of price unfairness and swift and potentially damaging negative reactions from consumers. This paper seeks to demonstrate a state‐of‐the‐art technique for assessing social norms, to identify current norms using a large representative sample of US consumers and to distinguish between social norms and personal beliefs.Design/methodology/approachThe study involves an online survey of 387 respondents. The survey was designed to measure both the consensus and the strength of consumer reaction to seller behaviors. To establish that a behavior is the norm, the consensus has to be greater than a 65 percent agreement and the strength of the response has to be significantly different from neutral. Both personal beliefs and perceptions of society's beliefs were collected.FindingsThe paper finds that some of the social norms constraining discriminatory pricing on the internet are as follows: a seller should charge the same price for a given item to all customers; a seller should not charge a higher price to either more loyal or more frequent customers; a seller should not charge more to new or infrequent customers; and a seller should not charge less to infrequent purchasers. In addition, although it is not established as a norm, a surprising 50 percent of the respondents think that Americans in general believe that all retailers should charge the same price for the same item. The paper also finds that personal beliefs are consistent with social norms but more extreme.Practical implicationsThe implications are that e‐tailers need to be careful about price discrimination on the internet – many of the most profitable practices violate current internet pricing norms. For example, consumers do not think that it is fair to give a cheaper price to a new buyer than to a repeat buyer. However, different e‐tailers can offer the same product at a different price. That is not considered price discrimination.Originality/valueBy identifying the social norms of pricing, sellers are provided with the information they need to avoid unwitting violations of those norms. Sellers can thus avoid angering their customers, as Amazon did when they allegedly charged new customers less than established customers.

An Ambience of Power? Challenges Inherent in the Role of the Public Transport Transit Officer

An Ambience of Power? Challenges Inherent in the Role of the Public Transport Transit Officer

Disgust selectively modulates reciprocal fairness in economic interactions.

We report two studies aimed at investigating the effects of distinct negative emotions on pairwise economic interactions. In the ultimatum game, a proposer offers a division of a sum of money to a responder who decides whether to accept the split, or reject and leave both players with nothing. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether induced disgust, as compared to sadness and neutral emotion, specifically influences responders' decisions to reject unfair proposals. In Experiment 2, we assessed whether the effects of disgust were selectively related to social contexts by contrasting interactions with a human partner with those involving a computer. Results showed that relative to being in a sad or neutral mood, induced feelings of disgust significantly increased rejection rates of unfair offers. Moreover, we found that when the partner was not responsible for the fairness violation, such as in the computer-offer condition, the disgust induction failed to affect participants' choices. We conclude by focusing on the hypothesis that disgust and social norm violations may share common computational components, both at a psychological and a neural level.

Behavioral norms for condensed moral vignettes.

Moral judgment is an evaluation of the actions and character of a person made with respect to societal norms. Although many types of vignettes have been used in previous studies on moral beliefs and judgment, what is missing is a set of standardized common vignettes based in real life. The goal of this study was to provide researchers with stimuli that have values on several dimensions pertaining to moral judgment and whose underlying components are known. These values will allow researchers to select stimuli based on standardized ratings rather than on the results of pilot studies, while avoiding the limitations of the classic, abstract moral scenarios. Our study was composed of three phases, (i) collecting and shortening the vignettes, (ii) obtaining ratings of the vignettes on several dimensions including emotional intensity, degree of social norm violation, and level of harm or benefit caused and (iii) determining the underlying components of the vignettes by performing a factor analysis. We found three components that accounted for most of the variance: norm violation, social affect and intention. The resulting vignettes can be used in future parametric studies on moral judgment in behavioral, neuropsychological and functional imaging experiments.

The Neural Circuitry of a Broken Promise

Promises are one of the oldest human-specific psychological mechanisms fostering cooperation and trust. Here, we study the neural underpinnings of promise keeping and promise breaking. Subjects first make a promise decision (promise stage), then they anticipate whether the promise affects the interaction partner's decision (anticipation stage) and are subsequently free to keep or break the promise (decision stage). Findings revealed that the breaking of the promise is associated with increased activation in the DLPFC, ACC, and amygdala, suggesting that the dishonest act involves an emotional conflict due to the suppression of the honest response. Moreover, the breach of the promise can be predicted by a perfidious brain activity pattern (anterior insula, ACC, inferior frontal gyrus) during the promise and anticipation stage, indicating that brain measurements may reveal malevolent intentions before dishonest or deceitful acts are actually committed.

Refinements in the hierarchical structure of externalizing psychiatric disorders: Patterns of lifetime liability from mid-adolescence through early adulthood.

Research on hierarchical modeling of psychopathology has frequently identified 2 higher order latent factors, internalizing and externalizing. When based on the comorbidity of psychiatric diagnoses, the externalizing domain has usually been modeled as a single latent factor. Multivariate studies of externalizing symptom features, however, suggest multidimensionality. To address this apparent contradiction, confirmatory factor analytic methods and information-theoretic criteria were used to evaluate 4 theoretically plausible measurement models based on lifetime comorbidity patterns of 7 putative externalizing disorders. Diagnostic information was collected at 4 assessment waves from an age-based cohort of 816 persons between the ages of 14 and 33. A 2-factor model that distinguished oppositional behavior disorders (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder) from social norm violation disorders (conduct disorder, adult antisocial behavior, alcohol use disorder, cannabis use disorder, hard drug use disorder) demonstrated consistently good fit and superior approximating abilities. Analyses of psychosocial outcomes measured at the last assessment wave supported the validity of this 2-factor model. Implications of this research for the theoretical understanding of domain-related disorders and the organization of classification systems are discussed.

The ‘Whys’ and ‘Hows’ of ethical investment: Understanding an early-stage market through an explorative approach

Over the last decade, markets for investments have changed in Europe. Consumers have become more aware of ethical standards and violations of social values and norms. While in some countries, such as the United States, this change took place decades ago, the market for ethical investment in Europe is still at an early stage. The present study investigates the underlying motives for ethical assets of consumers in early-stage markets. Using seven interviews with financial experts and five focus groups with ethical and conventional investors, we examine how investors view ethical investment, how ethical investors are described in terms of socio-demographics and personality characteristics, and which attitudinal factors are related to ethical investment behaviour. Interviews and focus groups are recorded and qualitatively analysed according to grounded theory. Ethical investment is found to be characterised through negative and positive ethical criteria. Our findings demonstrate how essential it is for ethical investors to lead a certain lifestyle driven by particular ecological and social values. Attitude theory serves to explain ethical investment behaviour. Conclusions for the marketing of ethical investment funds and for future research are drawn.

Effects on Wage and Employment after Implementation of Social Security Norms in the Agricultural Labour Market

Government of India wants to implement 'Conditions of Work and Livelihood Promotion Bill' for the agricultural workers who are unorganized in nature in such a time when cultivation is not very profitable and employment generations in the agricultural sector are declining. This paper is a theoretical attempt to identify the impact on agricultural employment and profitability of the farmer if the 'conditions of work' are imposed in the agricultural labour market. Here the farmer is a monopsonist and employs both local and migrant labourer during the time of production when the local labourers get full social security from their employer but the migrant labourers are deprived from getting that. This paper proves that any type of social security norm including higher minimum wage not only decreases the overall employment generation in the agricultural sector but also decreases the profitability of the farmer. The profit maximizing farmer will always force the unprotected migrant labourer to work maximum possible extra hours more than the normal one. But if the monetary punishment for the employer after detection of the violation of social security norms is high then the farmer will employ less number of unprotected labourers during the time of cultivation. We here will decide the value of penalty at which the cultivation is not become less attractive and social security norms for most of the labourers can be maintained.

Stupid, Pointless Wars

Nemesis is the justified indignation people feel at a violation of social norms, or, as here, behavior that gives rise to such indignation. This is a shifty thing for the Trojan elders to say, since by treating one moral issue whether Helen is worth fighting over they obscure a simpler one on which there can be no real doubt. Taking Helen was wrong, and it will soon be revealed to be even more decisively wrong after the violation of the truce. So considering whether she is, in herself, worth fighting over, if one had some legitimate claim to her, is an evasion. This may be a real question for the Achaeans, but not for the Trojans. But even if we take the remark at face value, it invites criticism. It is possible for a character to say that something is not nemesis or nemesseton as a litotes, where the speaker means that it is absolutely the correct thing to

Queuing Among U2 Fans: Reactions to Social Norm Violations1

Two experiments examined reactions to line‐intrusion scenarios among fans of the rock group U2 waiting in overnight lines to obtain desirable concert floor spots. Commitment to the goal, time investment, and ambiguity of the line‐intrusion scenario were examined. Results showed that the queue is a social system influenced by norms of procedural justice (first‐come, first‐served). Violations of these norms were upsetting, even when the consequences did not directly influence personal outcomes (when line intrusions occurred behind a subject). Greater commitment to the goal led to more severe reactions to norm violations, whether the commitment was proximal (having waited in the line for awhile) or distal (being a committed fan). We discuss research on social norm violations.

The Effects of Perceived Anonymity on Altruistic Punishment

Previous studies investigating altruistic punishment have confounded the effects of two independent variables: information transmission (or breach of privacy) and personal identification (or breach of anonymity). Here we report findings from a brief study in which participants were asked to respond to a social norm violation (i.e., an anonymous actor had behaved selfishly in an economic game) by deciding whether to sacrifice their own endowment to punish this person. A third of the participants were told that their economic decisions would be made known to another player but could not be identified (privacy breach condition), whereas another third were informed that their decision as well as their names would be made known (anonymity breach condition). (The decisions of control participants were completely anonymous and private.) Participants also justified their economic decisions and reported their emotional experiences. The results were participants punished most in the privacy and anonymity breach conditions and least in the control condition. These findings have implications for existing evolutionary accounts of altruistic punishment.

An Evidence-Based Review of the Psychopathology of Frontotemporal Dementia: A Report of the ANPA Committee on Research

The Committee on Research of the American Neuropsychiatric Association conducted a review of the noncognitive neuropsychiatric manifestations of frontotemporal dementia. The Committee on Research searched reviews and several online databases for all pertinent publications. Single case reports without pathology were excluded, except for psychosis, where single cases made up much of the literature. The strongest evidence supports an association of frontotemporal dementia with the following behaviors: apathy-abulia; disinhibition-impulsivity; loss of insight and self-referential behavior; decreased emotion and empathy; violation of social and moral norms; changes in dietary or eating behavior; and repetitive behaviors. Frontotemporal dementia is less frequently associated with anxiety and mood disorders, which may be a prodrome or risk factor, and rarely presents with delusions or hallucinations. The results of this review highlight the distinct neuropsychiatric manifestations of frontotemporal dementia and the need to reconsider the current diagnostic criteria for this disorder.

Neural Correlates of Human Virtue Judgment

Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the brain regions implicated in moral cognition. However, those studies have focused exclusively on violation of social norms and negative moral emotions, and very little effort has been expended on the investigation of positive reactions to moral excellence. It remains unclear whether the brain regions implicated in moral cognition have specific roles in processing moral violation or, more generally, process human morality per se. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, brain activations during evaluation of moral beauty and depravity were investigated. Praiseworthiness for moral beauty was associated with activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, whereas blameworthiness for moral depravity was related to the posterior superior temporal sulcus. Humans might have developed different neurocognitive systems for evaluating blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. The central process of moral beauty evaluation might be related to that of aesthetic evaluation. Our finding might contribute to a better understanding of human morality.

Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-normative judgments

To investigate how individual differences in moral judgment competence are reflected in the human brain, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, while 23 participants made either socio-normative or grammatical judgments. Participants with lower moral judgment competence recruited the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the left posterior superior temporal sulcus more than participants with greater competence in this domain when identifying social norm violations. Moreover, moral judgment competence scores were inversely correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during socio-normative relative to grammatical judgments. Greater activity in right DLPFC in participants with lower moral judgment competence indicates increased recruitment of rule-based knowledge and its controlled application during socio-normative judgments. These data support current models of the neurocognition of morality according to which both emotional and cognitive components play an important role.

The Neural Signature of Social Norm Compliance

All known human societies establish social order by punishing violators of social norms. However, little is known about how the brain processes the punishment threat associated with norm violations. We use fMRI to study the neural circuitry behind social norm compliance by comparing a treatment in which norm violations can be punished with a control treatment in which punishment is impossible. Individuals' increase in norm compliance when punishment is possible exhibits a strong positive correlation with activations in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Moreover, lateral orbitofrontal cortex activity is strongly correlated with Machiavellian personality characteristics. These findings indicate a neural network involved in social norm compliance that might constitute an important basis for human sociality. Different activations of this network reveal individual differences in the behavioral response to the punishment threat and might thus provide a deeper understanding of the neurobiological sources of pathologies such as antisocial personality disorder.

Neural correlates of individual differences in moral judgment competence

Normative judgment – the evaluation of actions with respect to social norms and values – entails a number of processes represented by a distributed network of brain regions. People differ with respect to their competence to make moral judgments. In this study we investigated how individual differences in this domain modulate neural correlates of simple normative judgments. Sentences including violations of social norms and grammatical rules were presented visually in a mixed blocked/ event-related design. Social norm violations were designed not to create emotional arousal. 23 participants decided whether sentences were normatively or grammatically correct while their brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging. To assess emotional arousal skin conductance was recorded. Individual differences in moral judgment competence were assessed using the Moral Judgment Test (C-score; Lind, 2001). Normative judgments compared to grammatical judgments resulted in activation of temporal poles, left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, left orbitofrontal cortex, and left posterior Sulcus temporalis superior (mixed effects, p<0.001, uncorr.). There was no correlation between C-scores and response times during either task, however changes in brain activity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, BA 45/46) during normative as compared to grammatical judgments covaried with C-scores. A region of interest analysis showed that C-scores correlated negatively with blood oxygen level-dependent responses in right DLPFC during normative (rNORM=-0.47, p<0.05) but not during grammatical judgments (rgram=-0.05, p=0.41). In this study we contrasted normative judgments devoid of emotional arousal with grammatical judgments. Our data are in line with previous studies which found a similar functional neural network contributing to a number of tasks ranging from simple moral decisions to complex dilemmatic moral judgments. Moreover, we provide first evidence that individual differences in moral judgment competence modulate neural correlates of normative judgments. When making normative judgments, participants with higher competence recruited the right DLPFC less than those with less ability in this domain. This might indicate lower processing demands of participants with higher moral judgment competence.

From Sodomy to Superstition: The Active Pathic and Bodily Transgressions in New Spain

Engaging primary documents and scholarly debates, this article examines an array of practices in colonial Mexico as it undertakes a discursive account of how gender ideologies informed the politics of discipline and a range of behaviors from atypical sexuality to cross-dressing and witchcraft. It speaks to a lived world set ambiguously between violations of social norms and the uncertainties of official culture as it examines these heterodox practices, especially as they relate to Indians.

Fairness and the Neurobiology of Social Cognition: Commentary on “Nonhuman species’ reactions to inequity and their implications for fairness” by Sarah Brosnan

Behavioral responses to social norm violation, such as those described in non-human primates by Brosnan, require, at the very least, attention to social cues, sensitivity to change (e.g., disappointment), and behavioral inhibition. Neurobiological evidence suggests that these various processes are instantiated in neural circuits localized to the parietal cortex, the striatum, and prefrontal cortex, respectively. Here we provide a brief overview of these neural mechanisms, which are likely to be involved in the perception of, and reaction to, social inequity.

Neural correlates of individual differences in moral judgment competence

Normative judgment – the evaluation of actions with respect to social norms and values – entails a number of processes represented by a distributed network of brain regions. People differ with respect to their competence to make moral judgments. In this study we investigated how individual differences in this domain modulate neural correlates of simple normative judgments. Sentences including violations of social norms and grammatical rules were presented visually in a mixed blocked/ event-related design. Social norm violations were designed not to create emotional arousal. 23 participants decided whether sentences were normatively or grammatically correct while their brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging. To assess emotional arousal skin conductance was recorded. Individual differences in moral judgment competence were assessed using the Moral Judgment Test (C-score; Lind, 2001). Normative judgments compared to grammatical judgments resulted in activation of temporal poles, left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, left orbitofrontal cortex, and left posterior Sulcus temporalis superior (mixed effects, p<0.001, uncorr.). There was no correlation between C-scores and response times during either task, however changes in brain activity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, BA 45/46) during normative as compared to grammatical judgments covaried with C-scores. A region of interest analysis showed that C-scores correlated negatively with blood oxygen level-dependent responses in right DLPFC during normative (rNORM=-0.47, p<0.05) but not during grammatical judgments (rgram=-0.05, p=0.41). In this study we contrasted normative judgments devoid of emotional arousal with grammatical judgments. Our data are in line with previous studies which found a similar functional neural network contributing to a number of tasks ranging from simple moral decisions to complex dilemmatic moral judgments. Moreover, we provide first evidence that individual differences in moral judgment competence modulate neural correlates of normative judgments. When making normative judgments, participants with higher competence recruited the right DLPFC less than those with less ability in this domain. This might indicate lower processing demands of participants with higher moral judgment competence.

Affective response to one's own moral violations

Morality depends on a set of cultural rules that regulate interpersonal behaviour and provide a basis for social cohesion. The interpretation of moral transgressions and their affective consequences depends on whether the action is intentional or accidental, and whether one is the agent of or witness to the action. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether the amygdala is involved in judging one's own moral violation of social norms. In this study, participants ( n = 12) were asked to make evaluations regarding the degree of inappropriateness of social behaviours described in stories in which they themselves, or someone else, transgressed social norms either intentionally or accidentally. Consistent with our hypothesis, the amygdala was activated when participants considered stories narrating their own intentional transgression of social norms. This result suggests the amygdala is important for affective responsiveness to moral transgressions.