How Norms Depend on the Presence and Status of Observers: The Relational Contingency of Everyday Behaviors in 90 Societies

Simpson B.; Eriksson K.; Vartanova I.; Strimling P.; Merchan Tamayo J.P.; Abdi K.A.; Ad N.; Aldashev A.; Ali H.M.; Alì M.; Aliyev K.; Alrefaee Y.; Alvarado Ortiz A.E.; Andersson P.A.; Andrighetto G.; Arikan G.; Benzon R. Aruta J.J.; Ayikwa C.L.; Baños-Chaparro J.; Barrera D.; Batkeyev B.; Batool A.; Berezina E.; Ngandu Bimina S.; Björnstjerna M.; Blumen S.; Boski P.; Boštjančič E.; Boum Y., II; Briguglio M.; Thu Bui H.T.; Caycho-Rodríguez T.; Chen Y.; Kudzai Chiweshe M.; Choi H.; Contreras-Ibáñez C.C.; Čorkalo D.; Cruz-Torres C.E.; Czakó A.; de Zoysa P.; Demetrovics Z.; Dinić B.M.; Drače S.; El-Haddad R.W.; Engelmann J.B.; Escudero Pérez I.; Euh H.; Fang X.; Frank C.; Freidin E.; Fulop M.; Gamsakhurdia V.; García Jiménez M.A.; Gardarsdottir R.B.; Gavreliuc A.; Hugues D. Gill C.M.; Gjoneska B.; Glöckner A.; Graf S.; Grigoryan A.; Growiec K.; Haas B.W.; Haddock G.; Hadjisolomou S.P.; Hadžiahmetović N.; Haji Mohammad Ali M.H.; Hakoköngäs E.; Halama P.; Hapunda G.; Hartanto A.; Hazrati M.; Herbas-Torrico B.C.; Holka S.; Hřebíčková M.; Hunter J.A.; Ibikounle M.; Ilisko D.; Jónsdóttir H.L.H.; Kaminskiene Z.; Kapoor H.; Kapović I.; Karim G.; Kawakami K.; Khachatryan N.; Kirschner J.B.; Kiruja J.; Kiyonari T.; Kohút M.; Kousar S.; Krasniqi B.; Landa-Blanco M.; Landon B.; Lep Ž.; Leslie L.M.; Li Y.; Liik K.; Lin M.-J.; Lobos Rivera M.E.; López-López W.; Maloku E.; Mandal M.; Manhique B.A.; Mpeti Mbende N.; Mendes Teixeira M.L.; Mohammed L.L.; Moore S.N.; Moraligil B.; Muradzada N.; Nanda H.; Nastina E.; Nejat P.; Nettle D.; Nipassa O.J.A.; Noe-Grijalva M.; Ntampaka P.; Ntone R.; Nussinson R.; Oljača M.; Onyedire N.G.; Onyishi I.E.; Panagiotopoulou P.; Parvez M.S.; Pasin G.L.; Pedović I.; Pérez de León P.; Perez Floriano L.R.; Persson M.; Pop-Jordanova N.; Portillo J.R.; Potang A.; Quesada-Román A.; Raver J.L.; Rodrigues R.B.; Rodríguez-Romero J.D.; Romanò S.; Ross R.M.; Rosun N.; Sadiković S.; San Martin A.; Smederevac S.; Smith S.J.; Soboleva N.; Sonessa D.E.; Stanley S.K.; Stoyanova K.; Stoyanov D.; Takemura K.; Thøgersen J.; Tiliouine H.; Tung H.; Ulambayar T.; Uzdavinyte E.M.; Waechter R.; Wu J.; Martial Yambiyo B.; Yankson E.; Yeh K.-H.; Van Lange P.A.M. · American Sociological Review (2026) · DOI: 10.1177/00031224261464586

Resumen

Norms are fundamental to social life, but basic questions about how they are affected by social context remain. Specifically, how do normative constraints depend on the presence and status of observers, and how do such relational contingencies vary across cultures? Using data from more than 25,000 individuals across 90 societies, we test several hypotheses linking normative constraints on everyday behaviors (like arguing, laughing, cursing, kissing, and crying), to the presence and status of observers. We find that behaviors widely viewed as appropriate in private become more constrained in the presence of others (an observer effect), and even more so when those others are higher in status (a status effect). Both observer and status effects are culturally universal, but the observer effect shows more variation across cultures. In particular, we find that observer effects are larger in societies that emphasize individualizing moral foundations, that is, avoiding harm and unfairness to others, because these societies are more permissive of actions when others are not around. The relative stability of status effects across cultural contexts suggests a universal tendency to defer in social hierarchies. These findings shed light on the relational contingency of everyday norms and underscore the role of such norms in the maintenance of social order and reproduction of inequality. © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Universidad Científica del Sur; Universidad Privada Norbert Wiener; Universidad César Vallejo