The dissertation studies two aspects of international hierarchy. The world of international politics is not one of completely sovereign states competing in anarchy. Patterns of hierarchy, where a dominant state has legitimate control over some actions of a subordinate state, color the globe. First, I look at shared norms and hierarchy. Most studies concerning hierarchy focus on material maximization as an explanation for hierarchy--if hierarchy increases the wealth and security of two states, then hierarchy is more likely. I argue that shared norms held by two states facilitate hierarchy. Shared norms produce a common in-group community, generate common interests, create common ways of doing business, and give rise to common values that increase subordinate states' ability to persuade the dominant state. These factors ease the creation and maintenance of international hierarchical relationships. Second, I study interstate behaviors that can be explained as actions of maintenance by dominant states over subordinates to preserve or increase a level of hierarchy. I theorize that sticks and carrots from a dominant state (like economic sanctions, military interventions, and foreign aid) help sustain a dominant state's rule by convincing subordinate states to follow the dominant state's commands and expectations. Using data on U.S. hierarchies from 1950 to 2010, I utilize multivariate regressions to test hypotheses drawn from these theories. I find that shared norms associate with hierarchy, and maintenance actions uncommonly associate with compliance.

The overall aim of this study is to gain an understanding of how student’sexperiences influence their perceptions about the use of alcohol during the study years. We focused on various factors that might have an impact on the individual’sperception and alcohol intake. These are: environmental influences such as family, school and friends and their dominant norms, context such as place and time in life and how individual and social identity affects student’sperceptions. The study is based on six empirical interviews, where quota sampling has been used for selecting participants. The theoretical framework is predominantly established in terms of norms, social deviance, group and self identity. Our findings show that the perception of alcohol and thereby the alcohol use has a connection to group identification, family relations, the student culture and that there are certain patterns related to individual and social identity aspects. We also noticed a difference in the perception of alcohol use over time, the primary focus of the differentiation suggesting that alcohol played a more significant part in the early stages of university studies.

Under projektet togs två prototyper fram som innefattade tre korta pussel med målet att se hur spelare reagerade vid brutna färgnormer. Sedan sammlades åtta testspelare som ansåg sig ha flera års erfarenhet inom datorspel och iaktog dem under speltestning för att notera den tid det tog för dem att klara varje pussel. Efter detta utfördes också en intervju med resondenterna med målet att se om de identifierade normerna uppfattas existera samt ta reda på varför de agerade som de gjorde. Enligt de resultat som gavs från speltestningen och intervjun så kan vi se att majoriteten av testspelarna kunde identifiera de färgnormer som valts att testa. "Röd dryck återställer hälsa" och "Färgad nyckel öppnar dörrar med samma färg" är de färgnormer som nästan alla testspelare lyckades identifiera följt av färgnormen "Grön knapp leder till en positiv effekt medans röd knapp leder till en negativ effekt". Här var respondenterna kluvna och endast lite mer en hälften ansåg att den normen existerade. Övriga agerade efter en fjärde färgnorm, "Röd knapp är 'action-knapp'". Speltestningen visar också att förvirring vid normbrott kan orsaka längre speltid ifall spelaren anser att färgnormen existerar samt agerar efter färg. Anledningen till denna förvirring skulle kunna vara att spelarna tidigare sett ett mönster och till det mönstret en lösning. När den lösningen plötsligt inte fungerar så blir spelaren förvirrade och måste då tänka om. I intervuerna berättade de att de agerar på objektens färg när de avgör hur de ska lösa pusslet och att testspelarna anser sig bli förvirrade när färgnormen bryts. / During this project we created two prototypes comprised of three short puzzles with the goal to see how players react when they encounter broken color norms. We gathered eight test players who considered themselves to have several years of experience playing computer games and watched them as they played to record the amount of time they required to solve each puzzle. We then interviewed the test players with the goal to clarify if they recognized the color norms and why they made the choices they made in each puzzle. According to the results from the play sessions and interviews, we noticed that most of our play testers identified the color norms we chose to test. "Red potion restores health" and "A colored key opens a door of the same color" were the most recognized color norms while the color norm "Green button leads to a positive effect while a red button leads to a negative effect" was only identified by just over half of our players. The rest of the players told us they identified a fourth color norm, "Red button is an action button". The play sessions also show that confusion caused by color norms may increase the play time as long as the player can identify the norm and make decisions based on colors. The reason to this confusion may depend on a pattern the player recognized as the solution to the puzzle. When this solution does not work, the player gets confused and must rethink the situation. In the interviews the players told us that they act on the objects' color and they consider themselves to become confused when the color norm is broken.

Recent work on the role of norms in the use of causal language by ordinary people has led to a consensus among several researchers: The consensus position is that causal attributions are sensitive to both statistical norms and prescriptive norms. But what is a statistical norm? We argue that there are at least two types that should be distinguished-agent-level statistical norms and population-level statistical norms. We then suggest an alternative account of ordinary causal attributions about agents (the responsibility view), noting that this view motivates divergent predictions about the effect of information about each of the two types of statistical norms noted. Further, these predictions run counter to those made by the consensus position. With this set-up in place, we present the results of a series of new experimental studies testing our predictions. The results are in line with the responsibility view, while indicating that the consensus position is seriously mistaken.

Previous research has shown that it is common for job candidates to use faking tactics in the context of employment interviews, but situational antecedents of applicant faking has been understudied. Using an experimental design, we aimed to investigate if descriptive and injunctive norms interact to influence the intention to engage in mild types of faking during job interviews.The data were collected through an online survey, where participants (N = 447) were asked to rate their intentions to fake in a hypothetical scenario after being exposed to one out of four norm conditions or being assigned to a no norm control condition. The results did not support the hypotheses, as the respondents presented with both descriptive and injunctive honesty norms did not express significantly lower faking intentions than the respondents that were exposed to two unaligned norms or those in the control group. Moreover, no difference was observed between the participants that were presented with both descriptive and injunctive faking norms and the respondents in the norm condition in which a descriptive faking norm and an injunctive honesty norm were signaled. The participants presented with two faking norms also did not differ significantly from the control group. Thus, the findings do not support the idea that the exposure to two aligned norms influences people’s faking intentions, at least in this specific context. However, more research is needed on this topic before any general conclusions can be drawn.

Social norms are patterns of behavior expected within a particular society in a given situation. Social norms can be shared belief of what is normal and acceptable shapes and enforces the actions of people in a society. In the educational classroom, they are characteristics that constitute the classroom participation structure. Sociomathematical norms are fine-grained aspects of general social norms specifically related to mathematical practices. These can include, but are not limited to, a student-centered classroom that includes the expectation that the students should present their solution methods by describing actions on mathematical objects rather than simply accounting for calculational manipulations. For this action research study, my goal was to determine if the role of the teacher would influence the social and sociomathematical norms in a mathematics classroom and in what ways are sociomathematical norms reflected in students' written work. I focused specifically on students' mathematics journal writing and taped conversations. I discovered that students tended to not justify their work. Also, I discovered that my idea of justification was not really justification. I learned from this and was able to change my idea of justification. By encouraging the students to socialize in mathematics class, I found that the quality of their dialogue improved. Students readily discussed mathematical concepts within small groups and whole class discussions.

archives@tulane.edu / Conventional wisdom suggests people must be willing to admit a problem exists before they can hope to solve it. This may be especially true in the case of implicit prejudice. Unlike explicit prejudice, which is conscious and deliberate, implicit prejudice is often unconscious and counter to what people intend. In addition, implicit prejudice is undesirable and leads people to respond defensively when told they have such prejudice. In this dissertation, I investigated whether social norms that encourage people to admit prejudice and exert effort to control it can be used to increase people’s willingness to admit their own implicit prejudice. In three experiments, participants watched (Experiments 1 and 2) or read about (Experiment 3) other people’s reactions to implicit attitude feedback. Then, participants were told they have an implicit bias favoring Whites over Blacks and responded to questions assessing defensiveness and willingness to admit prejudice. Experiments 1 and 2 found that seeing others acknowledge prejudice decreased people’s defensiveness to feedback about their own implicit attitudes and increased willingness to admit personal prejudice. Experiment 3 manipulated social norms with summary information about a referent group and found that while learning most other people deny prejudice caused participants to believe denying was more normal, overall, the manipulation had little influence on defensiveness or willingness to admit prejudice. Together, these experiments suggest that social norms can influence people’s willingness to admit personally prejudiced implicit attitudes, but to be effective, the example set by others must be vivid. / 1 / Aaron Moss

This thesis documents the development of the Chinese government??s response to HIV/AIDS in the context of the global AIDS regime in order to assess when, how and to what extent international AIDS norms have had an impact upon China??s governance of AIDS. Employing an applied constructivist framework, the thesis argues that the impact of global norms at the domestic level has been contingent on a) the socializing actions of norm entrepreneurs, b) the domestic political context and c) crisis. In the case of China and the impact of global AIDS norms, the central argument is that key elements of China??s domestic political context minimized the socializing affects of the global AIDS regime until the SARS crisis in 2003 led to a reappraisal of AIDS in the context of political legitimacy, at which time global AIDS norms began to have increasing salience in China. This thesis begins by identifying the evolution of a global AIDS regime before moving on to an exploration of China??s domestic political context. The thesis then documents and analyses China??s governance of AIDS from 1985 to 2007 through the use of five indicators ?? political commitment, legislation and policy, representation of AIDS in the media, the participation of civil society, and international engagement. The findings demonstrate that there has been a significant change between China??s pre-SARS and post-SARS AIDS governance with China acting increasingly in accordance with global norms following the SARS crisis of 2003. The thesis proposes that the SARS crisis was catalytic in that it exposed the vulnerability of the Chinese government??s claims to legitimacy, and in so doing, enabled the domestic political context to shift, allowing health, and by extension AIDS, to be reframed as a political issue. Importantly however, when the Chinese government scaled up its response to the epidemic it was able to be guided by the normative framework prescribed by the global AIDS regime.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Television has developed dramatically over the past six years in Afghanistan with a potential for providing extensive health information to its viewers, yet little is known about the coverage of health issues on Afghan television. Using the theories of agenda-setting and framing, and social norms approach this study explored what health-related topics were covered, how they were covered, and what sociocultural practices were broadcasted by the major Afghan private, national televisions. The study used a sample of six constructed weeks in 2010 of two leading private, national television networks. Firstly, the study found that priority health problems such as maternal and child health, communicable disease and mental health received very less coverage. Secondly, however, individual-level and societal-level causes were blamed equally for the health problems; individual behaviour solutions were the favourite choice of the media, turning a blind eye to government weakness and organizational solutions. Thirdly, self-prescription, religious and traditional health seeking behaviour, and gender inequity were routine practices reflected on television. As the first content analyses of the coverage of health-related issues in Afghanistan, the study provides public health professions, the Afghan media and policy makers a broad picture of health information available to the public on the leading Afghan television stations.