Norms + Values

• Margret Mead travelled to Papua New Guinea to study three different tribal groups.
• Plummer explained how some actions can be seen as norms or acts of deviance, depending on the context.
• Mead aimed to find out if gender roles in America were universal and innate or if they were culturally relative.
• Plummer was an interactionist.
• Plummer named deviance either "situational deviance" or "societal deviance."
• Values are deeply held beliefs about what is important or desirable in a society.
• Norms are social expectations that guide behavior in a particular society or group.
• Cultural relativism is the belief that norms and values are not universal, but rather vary across different cultures and societies.
• One example of a norm is wearing clothes in public.
• One example of a value is the belief everyone should be treated with respect.
• Norms and Values are learnt through the process of socialisation.
• Values often influence our norms.
• A norm is an action or behaviour which society believes is an acceptable way to behave
• What is a value?

  A value is the ideas and beliefs that a society holds about what is important
• What is situational deviance?


  acts that can be defined deviant or as a norm, depending on circumstances
• What did Mead find when studying the Tchambuli tribe in Papua New Guinea?


  that gender norms were culturally relative, as the women were dominant and the men were less responsible and emotionally dependent within the tribe.