Social Research: An International Quarterly

norms are rules about which there is some degree of consensus and that are socially enforced (Horne 2001).¹ Norms can mandate, encourage, allow, discourage, and forbid behaviors. When norms are in place, people expect others to react negatively to violations and positively to compliance (Horne 2009). Thus norms can be conceptualized as expectations about the social acceptability of behaviors. We refer to such expectations as normative expectations (Bicchieri 2017). While some scholars have identified factors that contribute to the emergence of new norms (Coleman 1990; Ullmann-Margalit 1977), researchers still understand relatively little about how norms change.

We argue that behavioral regularities help explain norm change and stability. Whatever the reason for a particular pattern of behavior, that pattern affects people’s normative expectations regarding how others are likely to react (Horne 2009; Willer, Kuwabara, and Macy 2009). So, if there is a persistent pattern of behavior (whatever [End Page 93] the cause of that pattern), people would expect others to approve of the behavior. And if behaviors change, then people would expect others to approve of the new behavior. The implication is that there is a feedback loop—patterns of behavior lead to normative expectations that, in turn, affect behavior.

We test our argument using two vignette experiments that describe very different substantive contexts. The first focuses on segregation in intimate family relationships. In the United States, despite widespread norms favoring colorblindness and integration, racial segregation remains widespread in most social arenas. We test whether manipulating levels of segregation in a community affects people’s normative expectations about transracial adoption, and in turn, their evaluations of potential transracial adoptive parents.

The second experiment focuses on online privacy. Although there is widespread concern about privacy and unease about the potential for increases in privacy violations, people nonetheless tend to use potentially privacy-violating technology. We test whether manipulating the frequency with which people use such technology affects individuals’ normative expectations regarding privacy, and in turn, their interest in using the technology.

Thus the two experiments are set in different empirical contexts—one in which norms have changed while behavior has not, and a second in which behavior is changing rapidly and norms appear to be lagging. In both contexts, we find that behavioral regularities affect normative expectations, and, in turn, decisions that are consistent with those regularities. We discuss the implications of our theory for understanding persistent racial segregation and Trump-era race norms, as well as contradictions between widespread concerns about privacy and individuals’ privacy-related behaviors. Our theory contributes to understanding of variation in the “stickiness” of norms.