Assignment: Breaking a Social Norm and Regulations Essay

Total word count at least 550

Breaking a Social Norm

Objective
This exercise demonstrates the way in which our interactions with others are often guided by an unwritten script. By violating that script students will illuminate the content of the script. This activity also illustrates how interactions with others shape our social behavior, encouraging us to abide by, rather than challenge, the unwritten rules contained in the script.

Description
You will conduct an exercise that violates social norms and write a short paper about the experience. The norm violation must exclude illegal activities or those that might risk someone’s safety, health or well-being (including violating covid-19 safety practices).  If you do not feel comfortable violating a norm in this particular moment (a completely understandable and valid concern) you may choose a video from  and analyze it following the instructions below.

This essay should include:

1) A description of the norm you/you saw violated. Was it a folkway or a more? (Remember, you cannot break a law).

2) A description of the violation.

3) A description of the most general way people responded as the violation was enacted.

4) A description of how you felt enacting or watching the norm violation.

5) An analytic discussion of the sociological significance of the of the norm and its violation.

In this paper, we ask whether similar mechanisms can explain changes in norms of trust and reciprocity over time. Just as trust and trustworthiness can be built, they can also be undermined. This paper endeavors to provide some insight into how a norm of reciprocity (and mutual cooperation) can unravel when individuals are observing each other’s behavior. This paper uses a twice-repeated trust game conducted in rural Peru to assess whether an individual’s decision to reciprocate is influenced by the observed reciprocity of others. This relationship has, to the authors’ knowledge, not been examined in the context of a trust game before nor using a careful identification strategy for what is observed in a group setting. We find that reciprocity decreases when small increases in non-reciprocal behavior are observed, but that this effect only exists when there is no strategic reason to cooperate.

Observing a positive relationship between an individual’s actions and the actions of his peers does not, however, imply a causal relationship. As Manski (2000) argues, a positive relationship could also be explained by the influence of observed characteristics on behavior (given characteristics are likely to determine behavior) or the influence of correlated effects such as shared individual and environmental characteristics.

In order to determine whether the relationship we observe is causal, we induced exogenous variation in observed behaviour and used this exogenous variation to identify a causal effect. Specifically, we introduced an information shock to randomly selected first movers in a trust game. This information shock reduced trust on the part of first movers which translated into reduced reciprocity observed by randomly selected second movers. We use this information shock to identify the impact of observed reciprocity on an individual’s decision to reciprocate trust.1 We find that once instrumented, observed reciprocity still remains a significant determinant of reciprocal behavior.

There are a number of reasons why the deviant behavior of one individual may impact the behavior of others. The economics literature typically delineates three channels by which the actions of others influence an individual’s behavior (Becker and Murphy, 2000, Bernheim, 1994).2 The most basic is that of externalities: actions taken by others may increase (or decrease) returns that an individual receives from undertaking the same action (such as in the case of contributing to a public good). The second mechanism is informational: to the extent that an individual believes others are better informed about the optimal course of action, the behavior of others may provide a source of information regarding the course of action she should take (e.g. Chamley, 2004, and the references within). Thirdly, social interactions can influence an individual’s preferences if individuals derive utility from minimizing the extent to which their actions deviate from the average behavior of others (Akerlof, 1997, Bernheim, 1994, Jones, 1984, Lindbeck et al., 1999).

Using data that was collected in a survey of participants, we try to understand the mechanisms that caused observed behavior to influence the actions that an individual takes. The experimental design was such that there were no externalities in returns and so we focus on testing for information or learning effects and for changes in preferences. Our results are not consistent with the presence of learning effects (perhaps not surprising, given the nature of the game) but are consistent with a story in which preferences are changed by observing others deviating from a norm of reciprocity.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource