Bachelor
2021/2022
Social Norms, Social Change
Type:
Elective course (Psychology)
Area of studies:
Psychology
Delivered by:
School of Psychology
Where:
Faculty of Social Sciences
When:
4 year, 3 module
Mode of studies:
distance learning
Online hours:
61
Open to:
students of one campus
Instructors:
Шаповалов Роман Алексеевич
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Contact hours:
2
Course Syllabus
Abstract
This is a course on social norms, the rules that glue societies together. It teaches how to diagnose social norms, and how to distinguish them from other social constructs, like customs or conventions. These distinctions are crucial for effective policy interventions aimed to create new, beneficial norms or eliminate harmful ones. The course teaches how to measure social norms and the expectations that support them, and how to decide whether they cause specific behaviors. The course is a joint Penn-UNICEF project, and it includes many examples of norms that sustain behaviors like child marriage, gender violence and sanitation practices. This is Part 1 of the Social Norms, Social Change series. In these lectures, I introduce all the basic concepts and definitions, such as social expectations and conditional preferences, that help us distinguish between different types of social practices like customs, descriptive norms and social norms. Expectations and preferences can be measured, and these lectures explain how to measure them. Measurement is crucial to understanding the nature of the practice you are facing, as well as whether an intervention was or was not successful, and why. In Part 2, we will put into practice all we have learned in Part 1.
Learning Objectives
- The purpose of the course is to provide the students with a broad overview of the basic foundations explaining the social norms, the rules that glue societies together.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- 1) Build skills in the analysis of the psychological phenomenon of moral lives. 2) Apply the knowledge about morality to the social problem solving.
Course Contents
- Topic 1. Interdependent & Independent Actions + Empirical Expectations
- Topic 2. Normative Expectations + Personal Normative Beliefs
- Topic 3. Conditional Preferences + Social Norms
- Topic 4. Pluralistic Ignorance + Measuring Norms
- Topic 5. Honors Lesson: Scripts and Schemas
- Topic 6. Norm Creation
- Topic 7. Norm Abandonment
- Topic 8. Trendsetters and Social Change
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Yuliya Kryukova, Юлия Крюкова Евгеньевна, & Галина Сорина Вениаминовна. (2018). Social norms in society as the integral factor of formation and estimation of reputation of the individual ; Социальные нормы в обществе как неотъемлемый фактор формирования и оценки репутации индивида. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.5D620F70
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Elinor Ostrom. (2000). Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms. Journal of Economic Perspectives, (3), 137. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.14.3.137