Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Emergent norm theory

Emergent norm are the rules which are established by the group members who have come together for a certain specific reason. The theory suggest that people come with different values,motives and perceptions and this differences among the people encourages the establishment of norm which in turn create an illusion of unanimity and uniformity of behavior.As for example the revolutionaries who were a part of the freedom struggle were all of different values but they came together for collective action and certain set rules assigned to the group according to which all acted .

2 comments:

Nivedita Pandey said...

At times, the emergent norm scares some individuals into compliance against their will and they become a part of the collective action unwillingly. Riots are an example of negative outcome of the emergent norm where at times individuals were too scared to oppose the wrongs and went with the norms and flow of events and became part of the collective action.

Hari Pillai said...

It is not only in riots,in our society some social norms and rituals are followed blindly because it is considered as "right" by the society or community. Eg. A wife is supposed to eat food after her husband has finished his meals. If it is from sheer love then their is no harm but when people follow it as a rule then i feel it is gross disrespect to a human by depriving her of food when she is hungry.