Norms are expected to make significant contributions towards enabling discourse in cyberspace among people of different backgrounds, just as they do in the physical world. Yet many distributed, electronically mediated groups fail to form norms successfully. Causes range from open discord to the more insidious lack of comfort people experience in groups that fail to openly address disagreements ...

I propose a mechanism of norm formation and maintenance that combines classical theory in social psychology on attitudes and social comparisons with a formal network theory of social influence. Underlying the formation of norms is the ubiquitous belief that there is a correct response for every situation and an abiding interest for persons to base their responses on these correct foundations. G...

I critically examine some recent work on the philosophy of scientific fictions, focusing on the work of Winsberg. By considering two case studies in fracture mechanics, the strip yield model and the imaginary crack method, I argue that his reliance upon the social norms associated with an element of a model forces him to remain silent whenever those norms fail to clearly match the characteristi...

The study reviewed two theories, namely Social Capital and Private Saving. Both explain the significance of voluntary contributions to pension scheme. They used approaches offer insights into how towards social security schemes are built up their implication informal sector actors. capital private saving theories’ effect on scheme contributions. were critically assessed relevance voluntarily co...

How do people sustain resources for the benefit of individuals and communities and avoid the tragedy of the commons, in which shared resources become exhausted? In the present study, we examined the role of serotonin activity and social norms in the management of depletable resources. Healthy adults, alongside social partners, completed a multiplayer resource-dilemma game in which they repeated...

This contribution investigates the function of emotion in relation to social norms, both in natural and artificial societies. First, the authors briefly illustrate that norms as socially shared mental objects play a crucial role in the dynamics of social structures and social order, in natural societies as well as in artificial systems. Second, the authors address the question how norms are enf...

For more than a century, Homo economicus has exclusively populated the theoretical world of economics. This model of the rationally selfinterested actor has also come to dominate substantial subfields of political science, sociology, law, and philosophy. However, many theorists doubt whether this model can explain most social phenomena unless it is supplemented with more socially sophisticated ...

We develop an explanation of the emergence of local norms and the associated phenomenon of geographical variation in behavior. Individuals are assumed to interact locally with neighbors in an environment with a network externality. Although many patterns of behavior are possible, the dispersed interactive choices of agents are shown to select behavior that is locally uniform but globally divers...

The values shared within a society influence the (social) behaviour of the agents in that society. In this paper we focus on the effect of norms on behaviour, taking into account the different types of norms: implicit norms that emerge among the people, norms that are explicitly imposed on the community (by a governing body) on the other, and norms that agents develop privately over their lives...