The Functions of Social Norms According to Charles Horton Cooley

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The Functions of Social Norms According to
Charles Horton Cooley

• A presentation from--
• Sociology Overview An Introduction to the
  Discipline of SociologyAn Online Course

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• The concepts in this presentation are based upon
  the work of Dressler (1973, pp. 123-124) and
  Cooley (1964, pp. 296-297).

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• Function One Social norms make it possible for
  the human organism to survive.

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• The newborn infant does not enter the world with
  the full equipment and capacity to respond
  appropriately to everything it will encounter in
  its environment.
• It would not survive without the social norms
  that influence adults to take care of it.

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• Platos Six Basic Assumptions of Society
• Humankind is an organism.
• Organisms tend toward survival.
• Humankind survives in groups.
• Humankind is a social animal.
• Humankind lives in an ordered society.
• The order of society is knowable.
• (Carroll, 1972 Denisoff, Callahan, Levine,
  1974, pp. 4-5 Rose, 1967)

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• Function Two Social norms are the means by which
  society is maintained and the needs of its
  members are fulfilled.

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• Unrestrained, our biological needs and
  inclinations would encourage or perhaps guarantee
  anarchy.
• When norms control behavior, individual
  participants in a culture are constrained to
  fulfill societal needs, sometimes at the expense
  of their natural drives.

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• Function Three Social norms make it possible for
  much of individual behavior to become automatic,
  greatly reducing the number of personal decisions
  to be made.

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• In the process of internalizing the norms of
  ones society, an individual learns countless
  time-tested procedures for the maintenance of
  life, health, comfort, and propriety.
• Once learned, they can be applied automatically
  in appropriate situations.

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• Two examples
• You do not reflect, each time you wish to greet a
  friend, on whether to extend your right or left
  hand.
• When driving a car, you no longer stop to
  consider whether to stay in the right or left
  traffic lane.
• These procedures were decided for you and you are
  habituated (socialized) to them.

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• The standards which conformity presses upon the
  individual are often elaborate and valuable
  products of cumulative thought and experience,
  and whatever imperfection they may have they are,
  as a whole, an indispensible foundation for life
  it is inconceivable that any one should dispense
  with them. If I imitate the dress, the manners,
  the household arrangements of other people, I
  save so much mental energy for other purposes
  (Cooley, 1964, pp. 296-297).

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• We would not want all our procedures
  predetermined for us, but a great deal of time
  and energy are conserved when routine behavior
  becomes automatic, leaving us freer than we would
  otherwise be to decide on a number of other
  procedures calling for individual thought and
  choice.

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• By accepting and following a cultural pattern,
  Cooley (1964) says, we get the selected and
  systemized outcome of the past (p. 297).
• Social norms provide rationality to our behaviors
  and free us from decision-overload that would
  result from our daily human interactions
  (Dressler, 1973, p. 3).

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• Social norms provide value to society beyond the
  simple what is proper? purpose.
• Social norms are an integral part of the
  normative/survival processes of society.
• Society could NOT survive without social norms.

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References

• Carroll, M. P. (1972, October). Considerations on
  the analysis of variance paradigm in sociology.
  Pacific Sociological Review, 15, 443-459.
• Cooley, C. H. (1964). Human nature and the social
  order (rev. ed.). New York Schocken.
• Denisoff, R. S., Callahan, O., Levine, M. H.
  (1974). Theories and paradigms in contemporary
  sociology. Itasca, IL F. E. Peacock Publishers.
• Dressler, D. (1973). Sociology The study of
  human interaction (2nd ed.). New York Alfred A.
  Knopf.
• Rose, A. (1967). The relation of theory and
  method. In L. Gross (Ed.), Sociology theory
  Inquiries and paradigms (pp. 207-219). New York
  Harper Row.

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Dr. Ronald Keith Bolender, Presenter
Dr. Bolender' s Portfolio To contact Dr.
Bolender, ronald_bolender_at_yahoo.com