compliment us on our choice. In Chi

compliment us on our choice. In China, the person at the top of the hierarchy
typically orders for everyone, and it is assumed the food will be
shared.
Individual choice matters little; self-esteem is gained through
group
participation, not individual choice.
Similarly, in China, if one is opening a new restaurant, the owner typically
will invite local leaders, including police, the tax collector,
and political
officials, for free meals. It is understood that in exchange for these
free
meals, the officials will treat the new business kindly.
This is because
the
culture stresses social reciprocity and mutual obligations to each other.
In
the United States, however,
such behavior would be seen as corruption,
attempted bribery,
and both the restaurant owner and the officials
who
accepted such “gifts” would be breaking the law.
Norms and values also vary within cultures. For example, while
images of wealth and success may be inspiring to some Americans, Hispanics
tend not to approve of overt materialistic displays of success. While
Americans
over the age of 40 might find it inappropriate for you to text
message
in a social situation, younger people often feel virtual relationships
are just as important and “present” as interpersonal ones right in
the
same room (Twenge,
2006). Enforcement varies, too. Teenagers,
for
example,
may care deeply about norms and standards of their peers but
not
about the judgment of others.
Norms also change over time. For example, not that long ago, norms
surrounding the use of telephones included not calling someone or talking
on the phone during the dinner hour unless it was an emergency.
Now
telemarketers
target that time slot as a good time to call people because
they
are likely to be home from work, and people routinely talk on cell
phones
right at the dinner table, even in restaurants. People check voice
mail
and text message each other during college classes (!) and during
business
meetings, when it used to be considered highly inappropriate to initiate or
allow
interruptions in these settings, again, except in an emergency.
People walk
around
plugged into iPods and MP3 players even on the job, at museums or other
cultural
events, and in social groups.
Technology has been a major driver of new norms and new mores over the last
several decades. After all, technological inventions have created some entirely new
social situations, new kinds of encounters and relationships, which have spawned new
social norms and mores to organize them. Think about it—there are sets of informal
rules about appropriate behavior on elevators, in airplanes,
or at urinals, to name just a few examples. The
Internet
has spawned a particularly wide range of new
norms,
mores, and language. “Netiquette” is now so elaborate
that book-length manuals are written about it, and
magazines
frequently offer service features to help their
readers
avoid a Web
faux pas (Table
2.1).
Norms consist of folkways, mores, and laws, depending
on their degree of formality in society.
Folkways
are
relatively weak and informal norms that are the result of
patterns of action. Many of the behaviors we call “man-
ners” or etiquette are folkways. Other people may notice
when we break them, but infractions are seldom punished.
For example, there are no formal laws that prohibit
women from wearing white to a wedding, which is informally
reserved for the bride alone. But people might think