Empowerment-based approaches to social development has attracted substantial attention in the last two decades. At the core of this debate is the preposition that empowering marginalised groups can improve their agency, with possible favourable implications for their life outcomes. The household bargaining literature has examined the effect of women’s empowerment/bargaining power on development outcomes (e.g. health, education, agriculture and household expenditure). A core issue in this literature is the measurement of what constitute women’s empowerment. The literature in economics and human development has tended to rely on the use of proxies that capture women’s access to resources and or capabilities/functioning. This approach tends to ignore or deemphasise the importance of social norms/informal institutions (norms, values, traditions, beliefs etc), which via patriarchal gender stereotypes, restrict women’s voice and access to resources. Although some researchers in demography have used proxies that capture social norms, they have been used alone, thus telling a single sided story as in the case of the economics and human development literature. Secondly, the discussion on the instrumental importance of women’s empowerment in this literature seem to have focused mainly on mean development outcomes compared to the distributions of such outcomes in the population (inequality). Thus, the current study, using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from 20 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, computes a composite women’s empowerment Index (CWEI), together with two sub-indices (social norms and access to resources) representing two dimensions of CWEI. The study further examines the comparative effect of social norms and women’s access to resources on household health (i.e. mean health outcomes for women and children and poor child health inequality). Results suggest that in general, women from Southern Africa have a higher score on CWEI compared to their counterparts from East and Central Africa and West Africa. In addition, Southern African women are more able to negotiate social norms that constrain their voice and agency, whiles women from West Africa perform better on the access to resources index. Information from the DHS data and other external data sources (World Development Indicators database, International Labour Office and WEIGO), together with the SSA literature on the politics of liberation struggles and the formal/informal dichotomy of SSA economies, suggest that the sub-regional differences may be due to the unique history of liberation struggles in Southern Africa and the relatively large size of the informal sector in West Africa. Multivariate results also confirm the long held view that women’s empowerment positively influences household health (mean health outcomes and inequality), with social norms having a much higher effect on household health compared to women’s access to resources. In addition, the results suggest that other factors such as women’s education, household wealth, access to and availability of health services, rural/urban and provincial differences have a higher effect on household health compared to the two dimensions of women’s empowerment. The study concludes, advocating that interventions aimed at improving women’s empowerment and bargaining emphasise issues of social norms, since they are likely to constrain women’s voice, access to resources and consequently implications on household outcomes. This emphasis must however take into consideration the importance of other equally important factors (women’s education, household wealth, access to and availability of health services etc), given that women’s empowerment (especially informal institutions such as social norms) could take a long time to change and their effect realized in the long-term.

This study examined how Trump frames various countries and their leaders and whether the framing changes from different factors. It also observed whether foreign leaders were following the same path as Trump in their diplomatic communication and interaction on Twitter. This was to contribute more knowledge that connects global politics with social media to see if changes of frames through Twitter caused any global political consequences. Theories including realist constructivism and framing theory, along with concepts of social norms, political context, events, and enemy images, were applied to the study. Using directed content analysis, together with longitudinal and comparative elements, the findings showed a separation between Trump’s and the other leaders’ tweets. Almost all tweets were connected to the concepts, and various techniques of framing were identified in tweets from most leaders. However, Trump’s informal,disdain, and dramatics in his tweets have distanced himself from the rest of the leaders’ posts. Although a couple of leaders’ attempt to be hostile towards Trump and the U.S. in their tweets, they were still formal. It shows that not only is Trump’s Twiplomacy a reflection of American superpower forcefulness, but also a unique form that the rest choose to ignore.

<p>My dissertation is divided into five relatively freestanding yet thematically linked essays, investigating a number of ways in which social norms and the question of racism are related. In these chapters, I aim to show the vital influence of social norms on our interpersonal relationships, going beyond the futile binary between individual (moral philosophy) and state (political philosophy), thereby affirming the primacy of the social over the political. Considering social norms can help us to see how individual agents are socially and culturally mediated, shaped, and distorted. In the dissertation, I discuss the racial contract (John Rawls and Charles Mills), racism as volitional states (Jorge Garcia), racism as ideology (Tommie Shelby and Sally Haslanger), and anti-racism through social movements (Elizabeth Anderson). By engaging them, I argue that racism as a socially harmful norm should be understood in the context of broader social environments. My thesis is that racism as a socially harmful norm should be understood as a manifestation in broad social environments where the mechanisms of social norms function structurally. In conclusion, I argue for the relevance of social critique instead of a narrow moral critique of racism. In this regard, my solution is not intended as a complete solution for the termination of all forms of racism, rather as certainly a needed viable approach both morally warranted and pragmatically efficacious.</p>

Although prior work has investigated the important influence of social norms, research has yet to explore the differential impact of internalization (i.e., the degree to which social norms regulate one’s behavior by integrated personal values versus external pressures) on different types of social norms. This dissertation compares the motivational underpinnings of moral rules and social conventions. To do so, I examine both norm adherence and responses to observed violations. Chapter 1 examines how internalization influences adherence to different norms. In three studies across different contexts, I found that intrinsic motivation (i.e., inner valuation) drives adherence to moral rules, whereas extrinsic motivation (i.e., the weight placed on the community’s judgments and sanctions) drives adherence to social conventions. Chapter 2 investigates individuals’ reactions to moral or conventional norm violations. Across seven studies, I showed that extrinsic and intrinsic motivations for norms moderate observers’ responses to different types of norm violations in terms of inappropriateness (i.e., cognitive response), anger (i.e., emotional response), punishment (i.e., behavioral tendency), and heart rate reactivity (i.e., physiological response). Results suggest that for moral norms, negative reactions to violations are stronger for individuals feeling higher intrinsic motivation. However, for social conventions, negative reactions are greater for individuals with higher extrinsic motivation. Chapter 3 introduces an important motivational concept—need for cognitive closure (NFCC, i.e., desperation to seek an answer). With two different studies, I found that NFCC is more likely to make people stressed out when confronting violations to moral than to conventional norms. Taken together, this dissertation has established the critical interaction between the domain of norms and one’s motivation to influence norm adherence and enforcement.

People often base their behaviors on social norms—what they think others do or approve of. This is likely true of fruit and vegetable (FV) intake as well. College students typically don’t get enough FV. We attempted to encourage FV eating by providing students with messages or demonstrations that eating FV is normal. First, we tried to encourage FV intake by providing students with messages regarding the average skin carotenoid concentration and where they fit within their peers (Chapter II). Carotenoids are compounds found in FV that cannot be made by the body, making them an estimate of FV intake. We found that students did not increase their self-reported FV intake or skin carotenoids as a result of these social norms messages, messages about the recommendation for FV or no message at all. We then added an approval/disapproval message (as ☺︎, :| or ☹︎ ) to the average carotenoid scores and where a student fit within their peers’ scores (Chapter V). This resulted in small increases in self-reported FV intake and skin carotenoids for those receiving the approval/disapproval message and those who only got information about the average score of their peers and where they fit within the average. To test whether self-report was influenced by messages regarding social norms, we sent out messages telling students they were lower than average—whether this was true or not, higher than average, providing the recommendation for FV, no message. Those told they were lower than their peers reported a half-cup increase in FV intake immediately after receiving the message. Finally, we attempted to influence student’s FV intake by having other students come into a weekly class, pose as students in the class and eat vegetables (Chapter III). We found that those exposed to these vegetable-eating students were no more likely to increase FV than those not exposed to it. Overall, we found very small or no effects from any of the included studies and that self-reported FV intake should be interpreted with caution. Interventions that include other factors, such as time, cost, availability or knowledge/skills, might increase FV more than social norms alone.

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This study investigates the misuse of prescription stimulants among undergraduates for a variety of different purposes, including: academic, other instrumental, and recreational. This research is important as existing literature as well as national level surveillance data indicates a substantial increase in this type of prescription drug misuse, especially among young adults aged 18-25. Drawing from several theoretical frameworks, this research focuses on how academic strain, social norms, and gender influence prescription stimulant misuse among undergraduates. Roughly 900 quantitative surveys were collected that specifically address undergraduate prescription stimulant misuse. The results indicate that college students are at an increased likelihood of misusing prescription stimulants if they experienced academic impediments and/or grade strain during the past academic year. Additionally, the findings show that undergraduates who have accepting attitudes of prescription stimulant misuse and who have peers that misuse prescription stimulants are also at an increased likelihood of misusing prescription stimulants. Furthermore, males were at an increased likelihood of prescription stimulant misuse for academic purposes if they had experienced grade strain during the past academic year in comparison to their female counterparts. Female undergraduates, on the other hand, were four times more likely than male undergraduates to obtain prescription stimulants from their close friends for free.

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