AO1

• Social Norms are specific to each culture:

  • vary in each society -> very few behaviours are deemed as universal e.g. homosexuality in some cultures is illegal
  • set of unwritten rules to follow
• Deviation from Social Norms:

  • 'when a person behaves in a way that is different from how we expect people to behave'
  • groups of people choose to define behaviour as abnormal on the basis that it offends their sense of what is 'acceptable' or the norm -> we are making a collective judgement as a society about what is right
• Deviation from Social Norms Example (Antisocial Personality Disorder -APD):

  • an individual with APD is impulsive, aggressive + irresponsible
  • according to DSM-5 1 important symptom of APD is an 'absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful or culturally normative ethical behaviour'
  • we are making social judgement that a psychopath is abnormal because they don't conform to our moral standards -> psychopathic behaviour would be considered abnormal in wide variety of cultures