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Del curso dictado por University of Pennsylvania

Social Norms, Social Change II

153 calificaciones

University of Pennsylvania

Social Norms, Social Change II

153 calificaciones

This course is Part 2 of the Social Norms, Social Change series. In this course, we will examine social change, the tools we may use to enact change, and put into practice all we have learned in Part 1. See Social Norms, Social Change Part I at this link: https://coursera.org/learn/norms This course covers scripts and schemas, the cognitive structures in which social expectations are embedded, and their relationship with social norms. The course then examines the essentials of norm abandonment, including the relations between personal beliefs and social expectations. We will also evaluate existing intervention strategies, including legal reforms, information campaigns, economic incentives, and group deliberations. Finally, we look at a variety of tools policy makers may use to effect change, highlight the role of trendsetters in social change, and explore the conditions under which they can be successful. The course is a joint Penn-UNICEF project." Please see the following link for a 30% discount on the book that accompanies this course: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/9780190622053/?cc=us&lang=en&promocode=AAFLYG6

De la lección

Trendsetters and Social Change

This module covers trendsetters and their relations to social change. Who are trendsetters? What are their characteristics? How can we identify them? And how can we use them to bring about positive social change. This module also discusses the role of soap operas and edutainment in bringing about social change, how fictional characters and groups can act as trendsetters, and comparative advantages of edutainment interventions over traditional interventions.

Introduction1:18

Conoce a los instructores

Cristina Bicchieri
S. J. Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics
Department of Philosophy

[MUSIC]

The most difficult problem to address in norm change is when

the majority of the population though aware of alternatives

values their standing practices.

As they attempt to initiate change,

trendsetters will face almost insurmountable odds.

Beliefs has not yet changed and

when and if they do, the change will be painfully slow.

If there are dissident community members convinced

that their practices are harmful, then it may be best for

these individuals to come together into small groups.

Trendsetters who come together into small groups can, if they are self sufficient,

break off from the broader network in which they were previously embedded and

create their own independent reference network.

In this case they need not fear punishment.

As they are sufficiently insulated from the larger population.

Think of the Amish who came to America precisely because they rejected life

in European society and wanted to create groups with their own rules and religion.

They have remained independent and self sufficient for centuries.

These networks possess several prominent properties.

The year dense in that each individual as many connection with other

network members and display a high level of similarity among it's members.

It is important to note that these networks did not spread their

lifestyle to other nearby groups, nor did they want to.

In fact the Amish form a tightly knit group that is sufficiently

segregated from the rest of society so as to impede Diffusion.

In many cases however,

a tightly neat network is not able to implement an sustain a new behavior.

Take the case of a male genital cutting,

which is often a societal prerequisite for finding a husband.

If marriage market norms encourage exogamous marriages,

a local change in personal beliefs, both factual and

normative will not be sufficient to change marriage patterns.

In this case,

the reference network includes other communities of potential mates and

at least some of these communities need to be involved for change to occur.

As more groups that wants to implement a new type of behavior, for

example ending child marriage or female genital cutting, will have an incentive

to both give the other cohorts reasons for change and

practically convince them that changing won't incur negative consequences.

We may think of the starting group as a sort of collective

trendsetter that wants to spread its new ideas to other networks.

But how does the collective trendsetter successfully reach these other networks?

Mark Ciligern discussed how deliberation not only

develops within what they call the core group of trendsetters.

But also how it diffuses out of the core group,

through local and more general networks.

There are several possible channels of diffusion that may be employed.

Discussion with family and friends.

Meeting with elders, religious leaders, women groups, community meetings, and

discussion with nearby communities.

Or inter-village meetings with delegates from surrounding communities.

All these interventions aimed to secure a collective shift of personal beliefs,

factual and normative that could have actually facilitated a change

in social expectations.

In other words, they provide sufficient reasons for

change to convince others of the need to abandon a standing norm.

We know that changing personal belief

is not equivalent to change in social expectations, especially empirical ones.

Change in the latter means either directly observing or

trusting that the practice is being abandoned, and that a new one is emerging.

At this point, our core group of trendsetter must convince others

that they can reduce the risk associated with abandoning a norm.

Organizing natural foot societies in China,

in which Families committed to not binding their daughters feet and

allowed their sons to only marry unbound women fought one of

the main obstacles to the elimination of foot binding, the marriagability problem.

Those families were convinced through public complains

of the adverse effects of foot binding.

The fact remained of not finding a husband for an unbound daughter.

Marriage societies for

the mutual abandonment of foot binding promised suitable mates for unbound girls,

eliminating the greatest risk associated with abandoning the practice.

Indian dowry-free matrimony websites

are another example of an attempt to create such protected networks.

As they also complement information campaigns with the assurance

that daughters will find husbands.

These networks change members' empirical and

normative expectation through the creation of a new marriage market.

Their very existent confirms that others have already deviated from the norm,

while the available pool of potential spouses mitigate the fact

of abandoning a shared practice.

The last obstacle, a small group of first mover must overcome

to expand their network is that of trust.

The members of a small protected network bent on changing

certain practices do not often face issues trusting each other.

The independent group relies so much on itself, that trust between members occurs

naturally for the purpose of their own survival.

Such groups will not need any formal or external signals of commitment.

Recall the example of the Amish.

For children who grow up in an Amish community,

all they know is a lifestyle, values and culture of their group.

So leaving their community entails both a tremendous risk and a loss of identity.

The risk is shared and keeps members together.

Groups that decide to abandon a social norm that is shared

in the wider population may not have the possibility of creating

a self sustaining independent network.

Outside of the small network, the problem of trust and commitment may easily arise.

It is in this case that public commitment become a crucial element of change.

We have seen the efficacy of public commitment in building trust

that change is indeed occurring.

That is, collectively promising to abandon the old practice and adopt a new one.

A public commitment maybe very effective if it is done with people we know,

and with whom we have repeated interactions.

However, the creation of small networks or

the organised diffusion of new ideas, starting from small groups,

is not a feasible alternative when the communities are very large.

For example,

in large cities, scaling up certain intervention proves to be quite difficult.

I already discussed the importance of the media in norm change.

In the next video, I shall expand on the role of the media as trendsetters.

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