Social Norms In Sports Research
To fully understand the effect sports has on society one must first fully understand norms and how they influence the population. A norm, like any other psychological phenomena, is “a construct that has widespread usage because it helps describe and explain human behavior” (Cialdini and Trost 151). Common norms become understood by groups and constrain behavior without force while adapting to the environment or situation that is present. These social norms, or social roles, which generally emerge out of interaction within the group, become the expected behavior and sanctions of deviance are controlled by the social network at hand rather than any legal system. All social norms are generally formed from a combination of: societal expectations
of the behavior (societal norms), people of value’s expectations for our behavior (subjective norms), and our own expectations for our behavior (personal norms). Merging societal, subjective, and personal norms provides a base of predictability throughout relationships and allows the understanding of other’s actions. This combination of norms offer order to the population, and allow human society to operate efficiently. For example it is the social norm to say please and thank you, hold the door for others, and to go to the back of the line, these behaviors are expected of everyone and are not stated as law or even protocol, but are silently enforced by the population.. “There is considerable pressure to conform to social roles,” Saul McLeod, psychology professor at the University of Manchester, writes, “Social roles provide an example of social influence in general and conformity in particular… We conform to the expectations of others, we respond to their approval when we play our roles well, and to their disapproval when we play our roles badly. But how far will conformity go?”. This question of conformity, and over conformity, is seen easily in sports norms. Sports norms apply to a smaller aspect of the population than social norms, generally only influencing the athletes, coaches, and (major) fans of the sport. Much like social norms, which vary from culture to culture, sports norms fluctuate from sport to sport and even from team to team.
of the behavior (societal norms), people of value’s expectations for our behavior (subjective norms), and our own expectations for our behavior (personal norms). Merging societal, subjective, and personal norms provides a base of predictability throughout relationships and allows the understanding of other’s actions. This combination of norms offer order to the population, and allow human society to operate efficiently. For example it is the social norm to say please and thank you, hold the door for others, and to go to the back of the line, these behaviors are expected of everyone and are not stated as law or even protocol, but are silently enforced by the population.. “There is considerable pressure to conform to social roles,” Saul McLeod, psychology professor at the University of Manchester, writes, “Social roles provide an example of social influence in general and conformity in particular… We conform to the expectations of others, we respond to their approval when we play our roles well, and to their disapproval when we play our roles badly. But how far will conformity go?”. This question of conformity, and over conformity, is seen easily in sports norms. Sports norms apply to a smaller aspect of the population than social norms, generally only influencing the athletes, coaches, and (major) fans of the sport. Much like social norms, which vary from culture to culture, sports norms fluctuate from sport to sport and even from team to team.