4.6
stars
1,870 ratings
•
482 reviews

Cristina Bicchieri

101,429 already enrolled

Offered By

University of Pennsylvania

Unicef

Social Norms, Social Change I

University of Pennsylvania

About this Course

41,238 recent views

This is a course on social norms, the rules that glue societies together. It teaches how to diagnose social norms, and how to distinguish them from other social constructs, like customs or conventions. These distinctions are crucial for effective policy interventions aimed to create new, beneficial norms or eliminate harmful ones. The course teaches how to measure social norms and the expectations that support them, and how to decide whether they cause specific behaviors.  The course is a joint Penn-UNICEF project, and it includes many examples of norms that sustain behaviors like child marriage, gender violence and sanitation practices. 
This is Part 1 of the Social Norms, Social Change series. In these lectures, I introduce all the basic concepts and definitions, such as social expectations and conditional preferences, that help us distinguish between different types of social practices like customs, descriptive norms and social norms. Expectations and preferences can be measured, and these lectures explain how to measure them. Measurement is crucial to understanding the nature of the practice you are facing, as well as whether an intervention was or was not successful, and why. In Part 2, we will put into practice all we have learned in Part 1.

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Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Beginner Level

Approx. 13 hours to complete

English

Subtitles: Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Chinese (Simplified), Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Turkish, English, Spanish, Romanian

Skills you will gain

Education
Social Psychology
Research Methods
Qualitative Research

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Beginner Level

Approx. 13 hours to complete

English

Subtitles: Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Chinese (Simplified), Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Turkish, English, Spanish, Romanian

Instructor

Instructor rating

4.73/5 (377 Ratings)

Cristina Bicchieri

S. J. Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics

Department of Philosophy

105,292 Learners

2 Courses

Offered by

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and considers itself to be the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.

Unicef

Syllabus - What you will learn from this course

Content Rating98%(34,428 ratings)

Week

Week 1

2 hours to complete

Interdependent & Independent Actions + Empirical Expectations

Welcome Social Norms, Social Change. This course aims to give you the tools to understand, measure, and change collective practices. This module focuses on two of the basic building blocks the theory of social norms is built on: the distinction between interdependent and independent behavior, and empirical expectations.

2 hours to complete

13 videos (Total 48 min), 7 readings, 2 quizzes

13 videos

Introduction to Interdependent and Independent Behavior1m

1.13m

1.24m

1.35m

1.42m

1.55m

1.64m

Introduction to Empirical Expectations1m

2.13m

2.24m

2.33m

2.42m

2.54m

7 readings

What makes a behavior independent versus interdependent?2m

What is a custom?4m

How do the concepts of interdependent and independent behavior apply in the wild?4m

What are social expectations?1m

What are empirical expectations?1m

How do unilateral and multilateral expectations relate to imitation and coordination?6m

What is a descriptive norm?4m

2 practice exercises

Quiz #1: Independent and Interdependent Behavior30m

Quiz #2: Empirical Expectations30m

Week

Week 2

3 hours to complete

Normative Expectations + Personal Normative Beliefs

This module adds two more of the basic building blocks of the theory: normative expectations and personal normative beliefs. Although both are "normative" — that is, both have a component dealing with a "should" — there are important differences between normative expectations and personal normative beliefs.

3 hours to complete

9 videos (Total 30 min), 6 readings, 2 quizzes

9 videos

Introduction to Normative Expectations1m

3.13m

3.23m

3.34m

3.42m

Introduction to Personal Normative Beliefs1m

4.15m

4.25m

4.32m

6 readings

What are Normative Expectations?10m

Sanctions10m

Reference Network Dependence10m

Non-Prudential Personal Normative Beliefs10m

Personal Normative Beliefs vs. Normative Expectations10m

Attitudes vs. Personal Normative Beliefs10m

2 practice exercises

Quiz 3: Normative Expectations30m

Quiz 4: Personal Normative Beliefs30m

Week

Week 3

2 hours to complete

Conditional Preferences + Social Norms

In this module we cover two topics: conditional preferences and social norms. Conditional preferences are the final basic building block of the theory of social norms. After studying all these building blocks, we can finally assemble them to understand what it means for a collective practice to be a social norm.

2 hours to complete

11 videos (Total 43 min), 4 readings, 2 quizzes

Week

Week 4

5 hours to complete

Pluralistic Ignorance + Measuring Norms

This module covers two important topics: pluralistic ignorance and norm measurement. Sometimes individuals endorse their social norms, but sometimes they do not. Knowing when a norm is endorsed is crucial for intervention. But how do we know we are dealing with a social norm or whether it's endorsed? Measurement answers that question.

5 hours to complete

12 videos (Total 90 min), 9 readings, 3 quizzes

12 videos

Introduction to Pluralistic Ignorance1m

7.16m

7.23m

7.36m

Introduction to Measuring Norms2m

8.17m

8.217m

8.315m

8.413m

8.58m

8.64m

Closing1m

9 readings

What is Pluralistic Ignorance?10m

Whether We are Facing Pluralistic Ignorance is an Empirical Question10m

Possibilities for Tackling Pluralistic Ignorance10m

Measurement: From the Lab to the Field10m

Hypotheticals and Belief-Expectation Manipulation10m

Measuring Beliefs and Expectations10m

Measuring Social Conditionality of Preference10m

Limits of Traditional Surveys and Solutions10m

Vignettes10m

3 practice exercises

Quiz 7: Pluralistic Ignorance30m

Quiz 8A: Measuring Norms, Part 130m

Quiz 8B: Measuring Norms, Part 230m

Reviews

4.6

482 reviews

5 stars
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4 stars
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3 stars
4.97%
2 stars
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1 star
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TOP REVIEWS FROM SOCIAL NORMS, SOCIAL CHANGE I

by EDOct 12, 2019

For a first time user, fresh to this information, it was stimulating and exciting to be learning how to identify social norms etc. and how to measure various aspects to effect change.

by SYJun 14, 2017

Really enjoyed this course. Insightful. Professor clearly communicates course content. Could do without all the opening jingles/intros since the video clips are really short, though.

by AAAug 19, 2017

GOOD course i learn from it a lot of information and concepts about the community and how to analyse the behavior of my community and think different about the solution of the problem .

by NAAug 29, 2020

The course materials are educative and just right for education purpose, I appreciate the facilitator and say thank you for your time and the knowledge you impact on me about Social Norm’s

View all reviews

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Social Norms, Social Change I

Social Norms, Social Change I

About this Course

Skills you will gain