Do People Learn Norms More Efficiently Than Other Rules?

Kim, Boyoung

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Year:: 2019
Contributor:: Kim, Boyoung (creator); Malle, Bertram (Advisor); Amso, Dima (Reader); Badre, David (Reader); Frank, Michael (Reader); Brown University. Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Social norms
Extent:: 17, 104 p.

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Description

Abstract:: In the current project, I examined how efficiently people learn social norms. Specifically, I investigated the relative learning efficiency for social norms by comparing it with that for personal safety rules. Two opposing hypotheses were drawn from the theories of motivation in social psychological literature. The need to belong theory (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) led to a prediction that people would be motivated to learn social norms with higher efficiency than they would be for personal safety rules. By contrast, the hierarchy of needs theory (Maslow, 1954) led to a prediction that people would be motivated to learn personal safety rules with higher efficiency than they would be for social norms. As an additional research question, I sought empirical support for the hypothesis that social norms are behavioral rules with inherently hierarchical (as opposed to flat) structures. To test these hypotheses, a rule-learning experimental paradigm was developed based on cognitive psychological literature in policy abstraction. In this task, participants learned a set of novel behavioral rules described as either a company’s norms or personal safety rules. Participants first received direct instructions about the rules governing which target stimuli dictated a choice between entering and not entering an office room. Then they practiced these rules by making choices and receiving feedback on those choices. Lastly, in the main session participants made choices about target stimuli without receiving any feedback on those choices. Across four studies, mixed evidence was found as to the relative efficiency of learning social norms versus personal safety rules. In Study 1, participants in the norm condition responded to reward more strongly in choosing correct responses, and also made more correct responses than participants in the safety condition. In Studies 2 and 3, however, these findings did not replicate. In Study 4, the results were in direct contrast to those of Study 1. Finally, in Study 1 there was evidence indicating a close relationship between social norms and hierarchical rule structures, but this pattern of results was not replicated in Study 4. Future work will focus on identifying psychological factors that might explain the inconsistency in these findings.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2019

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Rights: In Copyright
Restrictions on Use: Collection is open for research.

Citation

Kim, Boyoung, "Do People Learn Norms More Efficiently Than Other Rules?" (2019). Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:1129467/

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Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences department.
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