The Impact of Social Norms on Virtue
Social norms—“the informal rules that govern behavior in groups and societies” (Bicchieri et al., 2011)—can be leveraged as a powerful tool for the development of virtue.
At the broadest level, our proposed research investigates social signaling processes (Aim 1) and social norm perceptions (Aim 2) to promote virtue. Our studies employ diverse methodologies—including behavioral studies (employing vignettes, surveys, and economic games), computational modeling, social network analysis, and field studies—enabled by theinterdisciplinary expertise of our team (e.g., psychology, engineering, philosophy, economics, sociology). In addition to our focus on real-world impacts, we address open theoretical questions from across the social sciences to provide insights that will motivate future interdisciplinary research.
- What is the impact of people’s virtuous behaviors on others around them?
- How can leaders effectively model and promote virtue through their actions?
- How can people, in general, experience the freedom to embody the virtues they value?
Answering these questions requiresidentifying and addressing a set of interrelated problems around the psychology of social signaling. First, when people, leaders and ordinary individuals alike, enact public virtue, observers can infer ulterior motives underlying their virtuous actions, namely, reputation signaling, and consequently engage in virtue discounting. Second, and, as a direct result, people can worry about how their own actions will be perceived by others: for example, will people think that I am doing good merely to look good? Our studies test novel theoretical predictions in this fine-grained mechanistic account of the uniquely human ability to iteratively reason about each other’s mental states (including motives underlying virtuous behaviors) to better understand how virtue is transmitted (versus when it is discounted). In other words, not only can I reason about yourmotives, but also I can reason about how you reason about my motives. Further, we explore how reasoning about our own motives, and self-identification with virtue, can be leveraged toencourage more people to freely embody their values and enact virtue authentically.
Crucially, our novel theoretical account distinguishes between virtue discounting and perceptions of reputation signaling, on the one hand, with perceptions of norm signaling, on the other (i.e., genuine prosocial attempts to influence others’ behavior). Our studies seek to leverage knowledge gained about public virtue perception to alleviate people’s concerns about appearing inauthentic or selfishly motivated when they enact public virtue, and also to help leaders and institutions proactively shape their signals to be well-received and yield positive social impact. The overarching aim is as follows: if more people are encouraged to freely embody their values and enact their aspirational virtues, then in a positively reinforcing fashion, others will also be more likely to do so, too, via their inferences of socially normative behavior. Our studies will be both innovative in testing new concepts, such as virtue discounting and norm signaling, and timely in applying them to complex societal problems.
How is social norm information perceived? The studies in Aim 1 seek to articulate and address problems of virtue discounting, with the goal of enhancing people’s freedom to enact virtue within their social environments. A key assumption is that promoting virtuous behavior has not only intrinsic benefit (for the virtuous agent and those the agent benefits) but also broader impact for those around and observing the virtuous agent. That is, people are influenced by what others do (i.e., social norm information). Aim 2 takes this assumption, articulates it in psychological detail, and rigorously tests it.
The studies in Aim 2 seek to investigate the features of social norms that effectively shape people’s virtue, in terms of their actions and attitudes. In particular, the studies characterize the impact of descriptive versus injunctive norms, dynamic versus static norms, and their interaction with moral identity, on virtue. We aim to investigate the differential effects of these social norms dimensions on people’s virtuous beliefs and behaviors. The studies also reveal when and how unvirtuous norms can be replaced with new virtuous norms, and how virtuous norms can spread through social networks. A final set of studies explores the enduring impact of social norms communicated through institutional practice. As such, Aim 2 will develop a rich understanding of how virtuous norms can be implemented, across virtues and applied contexts.
Like studies in Aim 1, the studies in Aim 2 identify key challenges for social change andindividual and collective character virtue development. For example, while people may be positively influenced by social norm information (including information about others’ virtuous behaviors), social licensing may also occur insofar that people feel that enough moral progress is already being made by other virtuous agents. In addition, as the studies in Aim 2 address, when social norm information leads people astray, then the goals to strive for become norm transcendence and virtuous norm change.
Focal Virtues
| Term | Definition | |
|---|---|---|
| Virtue | A quality that demonstrates excellence in an aspect of an individual’s character (which can be examined as a state or a trait) | |
| Moral | Generosity | Conferring benefits to others at cost to oneself |
| Honesty | Conferring benefits to others at cost to oneself | |
| Forgiveness | Absolving negative affect arising from endured harm | |
| Gratitude | Exhibiting positive emotion in response to receiving a benefit (or the intention to do so) - often motivating reciprocity toward the benefactor | |
| Compassion | Demonstrating an enduring concern and care for another's welfare in the same manner as concern for one's own | |
| Intellectual | Intellectual Humility | Accepting the limits of one's experience or knowledge |
| Curiosity | Demonstrating the desire to obtain information | |
| Civic | Justice | Treating others equally, impartially, or fairly, without bias or prejudice |
| Citizenship | Demonstrating commitment to the well-being of some larger group of which one is a member | |
| Civility | Treating others with respect, tolerance, and consideration | |
| Performance | Self-Control | Regulating one's behavior to engage in a task or refrain from engaging in a task despite a desire to do the opposite |
| Purpose | Identifying with a guiding principle or long-term goal | |
| Perseverance | Paying careful attention and devoting persistent effort in the service of a goal | |
Study 1. Investigating the dimensionality of properties underlying perceptions of virtue
- Is there a shared structure of the properties underlying (all?) virtues, moral domains, etc. that the academic literature has yet to uncover?
- Our preliminary research has attempted to identify such properties in the context of generosity and impartiality or justice.
- Here, we aim to explore the dimensionality of these properties among the full suite of virtues investigated in this proposal: generosity, honesty, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, humility, curiosity, justice, citizenship, civility, self-control, purpose, and perseverance.
Study 2. A psychological account of the functions of virtues
- Previous research has proposed a higher-order categorization of virtues according to their functions:
- Moral virtues (e.g., generosity and forgiveness) foster good relationships.
- Intellectual virtues (e.g., intellectual humility and curiosity) foster truth-seeking.
- Civic virtues (e.g., justice and civility) foster good citizenship
- Performance virtues (e.g., self-control and perseverance) foster goal attainment.
- In this study, we aim to verify lay perceptions of this categorization, and to explore the space of other possible functions virtues might serve.
Study 3. Developing a Virtue Identification Scale (VIS)
- We expect that an important moderator of efforts to promote virtue (as in many studies inthis proposal) will be individuals’ self-identification with the specific virtue(s) at stake.
- We aim to lay the groundwork for a Virtue Identification Scale (VIS), informed by our theoretical framework as well as past research into relevant constructs.
The fundamental question we examine in this section is whether the pattern of social connectedness within a community or society governs people's coordination on a set of behaviors that are regarded as virtuous. Are there general features of moral psychology that may fail to be “actualized” in some societies, yet brought to fruition in others?
Professor Liane Young describes some of her lab's work on moral psychology.