# Social Norm **Domain:** Sociology / Behavioral Governance **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition A **social norm** is a shared expectation about conduct whose force comes substantially from social recognition, approval, disapproval or anticipated response rather than from formal legal enforcement alone. Descriptive norms concern what people believe others ordinarily do. Injunctive norms concern what people believe others approve or disapprove. The distinction matters because common behavior is not necessarily endorsed, and professed approval does not guarantee common practice. ## Historical Lineage Every durable group develops expectations before it develops a complete code. Kin groups, guilds, congregations, professions, neighborhoods and online communities stabilize conduct through reputation, role and repeated correction. Law may later formalize a norm, reject it or leave it socially operative beneath the legal surface. ## Governing Variable The governing variable is perceived acceptability: which action will preserve standing, belonging and trust within a reference group. ## Material and Computational Manifestation Norms shape speech, dress, proximity, queueing, hospitality, access and use of common resources. In computational environments, community conventions, moderation practice, interface defaults and protocol expectations can play analogous coordinating roles. The analogy does not make a platform rule equivalent to a social norm; it identifies how expectation can become executable through an environment. ## Relation to Governance Norms permit coordination without continuous official command. Their distributed character can preserve local competence, but it can also make responsibility difficult to locate. A norm may emerge without a central author and still create severe constraints. ## Constitutional Question and Failure Modes Norms can become discriminatory, opaque or self-reinforcing. People may comply because everyone appears to comply, producing pluralistic ignorance. Legitimate systems need ways to distinguish voluntary convention from coercive conformity and to protect dissent, exit and minority practice. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Custom|Custom]] · [[wiki/Informal Enforcement|Informal Enforcement]] · [[wiki/Behavioral Signal|Behavioral Signal]] · [[wiki/Law as Spatial Logic|Law as Spatial Logic]]