Surveys show that 65% of employees at a company regularly arrive late to meetings, yet people still feel awkward and apologize when they do so. A sociologist would say that the norm of punctuality has...
ADisappeared, since most people violate it
BNever truly existed since it was never uniformly followed
CPersisted as a prescriptive expectation even though most behavior deviates from it, because norms are not statistical averages
DBecome a folkway rather than a mere
This question targets the most important misconception about norms: that they describe what most people do. They don't — norms prescribe what people *should* do, backed by social pressure and internal guilt. The awkwardness and apologies show that the norm is still operating. If norms were just averages, no one would feel guilty about doing what most people do. A norm can persist robustly even when most individuals violate it.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
At a formal dinner, someone eats with their hands. At a different occasion, someone commits fraud against a vulnerable person. Which pairing of norm type and likely response is most accurate?
ABoth violate mores; both produce moral outrage
BThe dinner behavior violates a folkway (producing social awkwardness or disapproval); the fraud violates a more (producing moral condemnation)
CBoth violate folkways; both produce mild discomfort
DThe dinner behavior violates a taboo; the fraud violates a mere
Folkways are informal customs whose violation produces mild social discomfort or judgment — eating with your hands is rude, not evil. Mores are norms with genuine moral weight whose violation triggers condemnation, because they protect important social values. The key distinction is moral force: a folkway violation makes you look bad; a more violation makes you a bad person, at least in the eyes of that group.
Question 3 True / False
A society that strongly endorses equality as a core value will have no discriminatory norms, because values determine norms.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Values and norms exist at different levels of abstraction and are maintained by different social mechanisms, so they can be out of sync for long periods. American culture has explicitly endorsed equality as a value for generations while simultaneously maintaining and practicing discriminatory norms. This gap is not simple hypocrisy — it reflects how abstract principles and concrete behavioral habits are learned and reinforced through different processes and with different degrees of social enforcement.
Question 4 True / False
Informal sanctions — such as a disapproving look, gossip, or exclusion from a social group — can be more powerful than formal legal sanctions in maintaining everyday norms.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
Informal sanctions operate constantly, require no institutional machinery, and are delivered by people whose opinion matters to the individual. A disapproving look from peers enforces norms in real time, without arrest or trial. Formal sanctions (fines, imprisonment) are reserved for serious violations and operate infrequently. For most everyday norms — how you dress, how you speak, how you treat others — informal social pressure does the heavy enforcement work, which is why even minor norm violations like standing the wrong way in an elevator trigger visible discomfort and corrective behavior.
Question 5 Short Answer
What is the difference between a social norm and a statistical average? Why does this distinction matter for understanding conformity and deviance?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: A statistical average describes what most people actually do. A social norm prescribes what people are expected or supposed to do, backed by social pressure and sanctions. The two can diverge widely — many people may violate a norm while still endorsing it. The distinction matters because deviance is defined as norm violation, not statistical rarity. Someone who does what most people do privately but violates the public expectation is still a deviant in sociological terms, while someone rare but socially approved is not deviant.
Conflating norms with averages leads to the false conclusion that norms automatically shift to match behavior. They don't — a norm can remain strong even when widely violated, as long as people still feel guilt, embarrassment, or social pressure around the violation. This distinction is foundational for understanding why social control persists even in environments with high rates of rule-breaking.