Journal article
Communications Psychology, 2025
APA
Click to copy
Eriksson, K., Strimling, P., Vartanova, I., Simpson, B., Persson, M., Abdi, K., … van Lange, P. V. (2025). Everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures. Communications Psychology.
Chicago/Turabian
Click to copy
Eriksson, Kimmo, P. Strimling, I. Vartanova, Brent Simpson, Minna Persson, K. Abdi, Neta Ad, et al. “Everyday Norms Have Become More Permissive over Time and Vary across Cultures.” Communications Psychology (2025).
MLA
Click to copy
Eriksson, Kimmo, et al. “Everyday Norms Have Become More Permissive over Time and Vary across Cultures.” Communications Psychology, 2025.
BibTeX Click to copy
@article{kimmo2025a,
title = {Everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures},
year = {2025},
journal = {Communications Psychology},
author = {Eriksson, Kimmo and Strimling, P. and Vartanova, I. and Simpson, Brent and Persson, Minna and Abdi, K. and Ad, Neta and Aldashev, Alisher and Ali, H. and Alì, Maurizio and Aliyev, Khatai and Alrefaee, Y. and Ortiz, Alberth Estuardo Alvarado and Andersson, Per A and Andrighetto, Giulia and Arikan, Gizem and Aruta, J. J. B. and Ayikwa, C. and Baños-Chaparro, Jonatan and Barrera, Davide and Baršytė, Justina and Batkeyev, Birzhan and Batool, Azma and Berezina, E. and Bimina, Stéphanie Ngandu and Björnstjerna, Marie and Blumen, Sheyla and Boski, P. and Boštjančič, E. and Boum, Yap and Briguglio, Marie and Bruno, K. and Bui, Huyen Thi Thu and Caycho-Rodríguez, Tomás and Chen, Yanyan and Chiweshe, M. and Choi, Hoon-Seok and Contreras-Ibáñez, Carlos C and Čorkalo, Dinka and Cruz-Torres, C. E. and Czakó, Andrea and de Zoysa, P. and Demetrovics, Z. and Dinić, Bojana M. and Drače, Saša and El-Haddad, Rita W. and Engelmann, Jan B. and Pérez, Ignacio Escudero and Euh, Hyun and Fang, Xia and Frank, C. and Freidin, E. and Fulop, M. and Gamsakhurdia, V. and Jiménez, M. A. García and Gardarsdottir, Ragna B and Gavreliuc, A. and Gill, C. M. and Gjoneska, B. and Glöckner, Andreas and Graf, S. and Grigoryan, Ani and Growiec, Katarzyna and Haas, Brian W. and Haddock, Geoffrey and Hadjisolomou, Stavros P and Hadžiahmetović, Nina and Ali, Mohammad Hosein Haji Mohammad and Hakoköngäs, Eemeli J. and Halama, P. and Hapunda, G. and Hartanto, A. and Hazrati, Mahsa and Herbas-Torrico, Boris Christian and Holka, Szilárd and Hřebíčková, M. and Hunter, John A. and Ibikounlé, M. and Iliško, D. and Jónsdóttir, Harpa Lind Hjördísar and Kaminskiene, Zivile and Kapoor, Hansika and Kapović, Ivan and Karim, Gassemi and Kawakami, Kerry and Khachatryan, N. and Kirschner, Julian B and Kiruja, J. and Kiyonari, T. and Kohút, Michal and Kousar, Shazia and Krasniqi, B. and Lado, Ludovic and Landa-Blanco, Miguel and Landon, B. and Lep, Žan and Leslie, Lisa M. and Li, Yang and Liik, Kadi and Lin, Ming-Jen and Rivera, Marlon Elías Lobos and López‐López, Wilson and Maloku, Edona and Mandal, Mohona and Manhique, Bernardo and Mbende, Nathan Mpeti and Medhioub, Imed and Teixeira, M. L. and Tamayo, J. P. Merchán and Mohammed, Linda and Moore, Schontal and Moraligil, Bahar and Muradzada, Nijat and Nanda, H. and Nastina, Ekaterina and Nejat, P. and Nettle, Daniel and Nipassa, O. and Noe-Grijalva, Martin and Ntampaka, P. and Ntone, R. and Nussinson, Ravit and Oljača, M. and Onyedire, N. G. and Onyishi, Ike E. and Panagiotopoulou, Penny and Alvarez, Daybel Pañellas and Parvez, M. and Pasin, Gian Luca and Pedović, Ivana and de León, Pablo Pérez and Floriano, L. P. Pérez and Pop-Jordanova, N. and Portillo, J. R. and Potang, Angela and Quesada-Román, Adolfo and Raver, Jana L. and Rodrigues, R. B. and Rodríguez-Romero, J. D. and Romanò, Sara and Ross, R. and Rosun, Nachita and Sadiković, S. and Martin, A. San and Smederevac, S. and Smith, Sarah and Soboleva, Natalia and Sonessa, Daniel Erena and Stanley, Samantha K. and Stoyanova, Kristina and Stoyanov, D. and Takemura, K. and Thøgersen, John and Tiliouine, Habib and Tung, Hans H. and Ulambayar, T. and Uzdavinyte, Elze and Waechter, Randall and Wang, Yi-Ting and Wu, Junhui and Yambio, Brice Martial and Yankson, Eric and Yeh, Kuang-Hui and van Lange, P. V.}
}
Every social situation that people encounter in their daily lives comes with a set of unwritten rules about what behavior is considered appropriate or inappropriate. These everyday norms can vary across societies: some societies may have more permissive norms in general or for certain behaviors, or for certain behaviors in specific situations. In a preregistered survey of 25,422 participants across 90 societies, we map societal differences in 150 everyday norms and show that they can be explained by how societies prioritize individualizing moral foundations such as care and liberty versus binding moral foundations such as purity. Specifically, societies with more individualistic morality tend to have more permissive norms in general (greater liberty) and especially for behaviors deemed vulgar (less purity), but they exhibit less permissive norms for behaviors perceived to have negative consequences in specific situations (greater care). By comparing our data with available data collected twenty years ago, we find a global pattern of change toward more permissive norms overall but less permissive norms for the most vulgar and inconsiderate behaviors. This study explains how social norms vary across behaviors, situations, societies, and time. A survey across 90 societies reveals that variation and change in everyday norms are explained by a single value dimension: the priority societies place on individualizing versus binding moral concerns.