• Kimmo Eriksson
  • Pontus Strimling
  • Michele Gelfand
  • Junhui Wu
  • Jered Abernathy
  • Charity S. Akotia
  • Alisher Aldashev
  • Per A. Andersson
  • Giulia Andrighetto
  • Adote Anum
  • Gizem Arikan
  • Zeynep Aycan
  • Fatemeh Bagherian
  • Davide Barrera
  • Dana Basnight-Brown
  • Birzhan Batkeyev
  • Anabel Belaus
  • Elizaveta Berezina
  • Marie Björnstjerna
  • Sheyla Blumen
  • Paweł Boski
  • Fouad Bou Zeineddine
  • Inna Bovina
  • Bui Thi Thu Huyen
  • Juan Camilo Cardenas
  • Đorđe Čekrlija
  • Hoon Seok Choi
  • Carlos C. Contreras-Ibáñez
  • Rui Costa-Lopes
  • Mícheál de Barra
  • Piyanjali de Zoysa
  • Angela Dorrough
  • Nikolay Dvoryanchikov
  • Anja Eller
  • Jan B. Engelmann
  • Hyun Euh
  • Xia Fang
  • Susann Fiedler
  • Olivia A. Foster-Gimbel
  • Márta Fülöp
  • Ragna B. Gardarsdottir
  • C. M.Hew D. Gill
  • Andreas Glöckner
  • Sylvie Graf
  • Ani Grigoryan
  • Katarzyna Growiec
  • Peter Halama
  • Andree Hartanto
  • Yang Li

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1481
JournalNature Communications
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2021

    Scopus subject areas

  • Psychology(all)

ID: 91887098