Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
10-2025
Abstract
Every social situation that people encounter in their daily lives comes with a set of unwritten rules about what behavior is considered appropriate or inappropriate. These everyday norms can vary across societies: some societies may have more permissive norms in general or for certain behaviors, or for certain behaviors in specific situations. In a preregistered survey of 25,422 participants across 90 societies, we map societal differences in 150 everyday norms and show that they can be explained by how societies prioritize individualizing moral foundations such as care and liberty versus binding moral foundations such as purity. Specifically, societies with more individualistic morality tend to have more permissive norms in general (greater liberty) and especially for behaviors deemed vulgar (less purity), but they exhibit less permissive norms for behaviors perceived to have negative consequences in specific situations (greater care). By comparing our data with available data collected twenty years ago, we find a global pattern of change toward more permissive norms overall but less permissive norms for the most vulgar and inconsiderate behaviors. This study explains how social norms vary across behaviors, situations, societies, and time.
Discipline
Personality and Social Contexts | Social Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Communications Psychology
Volume
3
Issue
1
First Page
1
Last Page
14
Identifier
10.1038/s44271-025-00324-4
Publisher
Nature Research
Citation
Eriksson, K., Strimling, P., Vartanova, I., & HARTANTO, Andree.(2025). Everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures. Communications Psychology, 3(1), 1-14.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4299
Copyright Owner and License
Author-CC-BY
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00324-4