For successful anti-corruption policies, it is crucial to understand the basic social contract governing the interaction between people. Social norms are a key element of the social contract, but may ...vary across cultures. We investigate how descriptive social norms affect the development of corruption over time. In a laboratory experiment implemented in the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, and China we study a corruption game that is based on a real-effort task. To induce natural variation in descriptive norms, we vary the type of information about others’ choices. Such information may lead to ‘contagion’ -where corruption increases in response to observing high corruption by others- or ‘conformism’ -where it decreases when low corruption by others is observed. Our results show evidence of contagion.
Changes within the field of "alternative religiosity", or precisely, an increasing presence of individualistic "spiritualities" and market-oriented forms of organisation, have long been anticipated ...in academic research on the "New Age". What has been paid less attention to is the actual process of this change or the relation between the New Spiritualities and the New Religious Movements labelled mostly politically nonconformist in France. This article works with government reports on "'sectes' in France", which provide aside from critical judgments of different groups and practices, surprisingly detailed empirical material. This material, its interpretation by "cult"-opponents and the effects of their continued use of the "group"-concept in relation to accusations of subversive "Nonconformism", will be critically evaluated with regard to possible factors for the changes in the alternative-religious field, between regulation and adaptation to a broader societal change and the related cultural dynamics. Zusammenfassung: Das verstrkte Auftreten individualisierter Formen von Religion und deren auffllige Marktorientierung wurde von wissenschaftlicher Seite mit den New Age-Studien schon lange antizipiert. Der eigentliche Prozess dieses Wandels im alternativ-religisen Feld von oft als nonkonformistisch eingestuften Gruppen hin zu schwer zu definierenden losen Strukturen wurde jedoch kaum genauer betrachtet und die New Spiritualities selten ins Verhltnis zu den Neuen Religisen Bewegungen gesetzt. Dieser Aufsatz sichtet mit dem Anliegen, einen Beitrag zur Schlieung empirischer Lcken zu liefern, franzsische Regierungsberichte ber sogenannte Sekten kritisch in Bezug auf deren Beschreibung und Interpretation dieses Wandels. In diesen Berichten wird zudem die praktische Relevanz der Differenzierung zwischen Gruppen und einer breiteren kulturellen Strmung exemplarisch deutlich: die Interpretation ihrer eigenen empirischen Befunde unter Beibehaltung des Gruppenkonzepts erlaubt es den Sekten-Gegnern, auch die schwachen Organisationsstrukturen gegenwrtiger Spiritualitt in ihr Metanarrativ der gesellschaftlichen Unterwanderung durch nonkonformistische Sekten zu integrieren. Die gewhlte zentrale Fragestellung ist die nach den Grnden fr diese Entwicklungen und besonders, inwiefern diese eher mit dem starken Widerstand, auf den viele Gruppen in Frankreich trafen, zusammenhngen oder als Teil eines allgemeineren gesellschaftlichen Wandels als kulturelle Dynamik zu verstehen sind.
Using the sanctions against atheism in the United States as an example, this article shows that religion can have a normative impact - which I call religious normation - upon nonadherents, too. I ...review classical and new definitions of religion in order to test if they are able to encompass this problem. While the Scientific Study of Religion is not theological in its methodology, it remains so in its definition of religion, as it utilizes an insider's perspective in defining its subject. I coin the term implicit emic perspective to describe this phenomenon and introduce a new definition of religion I believe includes its impact on society as a whole, including those who are not religious. Zusammenfassung: Der Artikel illustriert am Beispiel der Sanktionierung des Atheismus in den USA, dass Religion eine normative Wirkung hat, die sich auch nach auen richten kann und die ich als religise Normierung bezeichne. Im Anschluss werden einige klassische und neuere Religionsdefinitionen daraufhin untersucht, ob sie in der Lage sind, dieses Phnomen zu erfassen. Zwar hat sich die Religionswissenschaft in ihren Erkenntnisprinzipien von Theologie und Phnomenologie gelst, in der Bestimmung ihres Gegenstands ist sie aber immer noch im Wesentlichen einer Innenperspektive verhaftet, fr die die Bezeichnung implizit emische Perspektive eingefhrt wird. Um diesen blinden Fleck zu erhellen, wird eine erweiterte Religionsdefinition vorgeschlagen, die in der Lage ist, auch die Wirkung von Religion in der Gesellschaft einzubeziehen.
Flexibility Now, Consistency Later Ledgerwood, Alison; Trope, Yaacov; Chaiken, Shelly
Journal of personality and social psychology,
07/2010, Letnik:
99, Številka:
1
Journal Article
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Researchers have long been interested in understanding the conditions under which evaluations will be more or less consistent or context-dependent. The current research explores this issue by asking ...when stability or flexibility in evaluative responding would be most useful. Integrating construal level theory with research suggesting that variability in the mental representation of an attitude object can produce fluctuations in evaluative responding, we propose a functional relationship between distance and evaluative flexibility. Because individuals construe psychologically proximal objects more concretely, evaluations of proximal objects will tend to incorporate unique information from the current social context, promoting context-specific responses. Conversely, because more distal objects are construed more abstractly, evaluations of distal objects will be less context-dependent. Consistent with this reasoning, the results of 4 studies suggest that when individuals mentally construe an attitude object concretely, either because it is psychologically close or because they have been led to adopt a concrete mindset, their evaluations flexibly incorporate the views of an incidental stranger. However, when individuals think about the same issue more abstractly, their evaluations are less susceptible to incidental social influence and instead reflect their previously reported ideological values. These findings suggest that there are ways of thinking that will tend to produce more or less variability in mental representation across contexts, which in turn shapes evaluative consistency. Connections to shared reality, conformity, and attitude function are discussed.
We consider how a social psychological bias referred to as pluralistic ignorance occurs among security analysts and how this bias may lead to behavioral conformity and isomorphism in analysts' ...reactions to the adoption of a particular organizational policy, namely, stock repurchase plans. Our theory suggests why (1) there may be a systematic tendency for analysts to underestimate the extent to which other analysts share their reservations about repurchase plans (i.e., reservations about whether plans reflect well on the performance prospects of adopting firms), such that (2) analysts conform to other analysts and issue more positive earnings forecasts and stock recommendations in response to the adoption of repurchase plans despite having private reservations about whether the plans reflect well on adopting firms. We also contend that analysts are less likely to underestimate the extent to which others share their reservations about repurchase plans to the extent that they have frequent communication ties to other analysts. Whereas prior neoinstitutional research on conformity and isomorphism has primarily adopted a cognitive perspective in which actors conform to the behavior of others based on their understandings of a particular policy or practice (i.e., they take the value of the policy for granted or infer the value of the policy from others' prior decisions), we develop a social psychological perspective on isomorphism wherein actors imitate others based on their biased perceptions of others' beliefs about the policy. We also extend perspectives on institutional persistence by explaining why constituents may continue to publicly endorse a policy despite having private reservations about the policy's efficiency benefits.
Upbringing – why? Adorno, Theodor W.
Fìlosofìâ osvìti (Online),
12/2019, Letnik:
24, Številka:
1
Journal Article
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This conversation by social philosopher Theodor Adorno, a representative of the critical theory of society, with Hellmut Becker, a political publicist and theorist of education, took place in 1966 ...and was published in the collection of Theodor Adorno`s philosophical and educational works Upbringing to responsibility. By this conversation Adorno and Becker critically examined the many aspects of the then West German education, which they believed did not fulfill their main task – it did not encourage the representatives of West German youth to become socially active people. According to Adorno and Becker, then education did not upbringing them as members of a democratic society, as people who must independently apply their own minds in a society whose democratic changes must be completely unchanged. Reflecting on the goal of proper education, these German intellectuals have defined the essence of democracy as the embodiment of such political governance, which requires the active use of intelligence by any member of society. Thus, the consciousness of an individual, activated by the educational effect of education on himself, education, which understands the correct purpose of its work, can withstand the influence on itself of the social ideology of a conformist society, the reality of which has distinct signs of cultural stagnation. Adorno and Becker agreed to call such man as responsibility man. However, in their opinion, education that holds on the traditional principles of upbringing leads to the formation of such a rational adaptation of man to the social world, which only increases the extent of its conformism. They also called the consequence of the influence of this social ideology on the human consciousness of her inability to hold on to the experience has gained in the society that makes a person a thing. Therefore, these German intellectuals drew attention to the phenomenon of primary and preschool education of the child, also noted the peculiarities of the period of puberty, suggesting that they be understood as possible factors for the successful overcoming of traditional upbringing. According to Adorno and Becker, by making to updated upbringing, the new education must effectively apply in its process the spontaneity of personal thinking of man. At the same time this unity of education and education effectively enabling the process of individualization of a man and will destroy the ideological tendency to preserve the principle of anti-individualism in the upbringing. This will happen due to the active participation of the new individuum, a person who is able to consciously resist any ideological influences on the collective consciousness of society.
In Martineau’s seminal chapter on the social functions of humor, he postulated some of the ways in which disparagement humor shapes social behavior. This research paper discusses three research ...studies that compared the effects of other-deprecating humor and self-deprecating humor on the observer and examines how they relate to Martineau’s theory. In our research, we hypothesized that people who observe ridicule of others experience “jeer pressure.” This inhibiting effect on behavior was expected to result in conformity to others’ opinions, fear about failing or standing out, and conventional thinking. In the first two studies, participants observed videotapes containing self-ridiculing humor, other-deprecating humor, or non-ridiculing/no humor. Participants then completed tasks assessing conforming, fear of failure, and creativity. Results of both studies showed that participants who observed ridicule of others were more conforming and more afraid of failing than participants who observed self-deprecating humor or the control condition. Study 3 examined the effects of ridicule of others versus self-deprecating humor on creativity using a more sophisticated creativity measure, and less caustic humor. Results supported the hypothesis that observing self-deprecating humor would result in higher levels of creativity compared to the other-ridicule condition. Implications of these findings for Martineau’s model are discussed.
We investigate the role of peer effects in the workplace on individual active transportation mode choices. We collect original data through an online survey on networks and sustainable behaviors ...among 334 individuals working in ten research laboratories at the University of Grenoble Alps in February 2020. We apply linear and nonlinear models of peer effects on active modal choice, untangling the role of conformism and strategic complementarity in social influence. We show that given our data, a linear local-average specification is the preferred empirical model of peer effects, and we estimate strong and significant endogenous peer effects.
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