Introduction
Norms are common standards of behavior that are agreed upon by members of a given society or social group. Norms shape human interactions and relationships on both individual and societal levels. There are three main types of norms: folkways, mores, and taboos. Each have their own level of importance and deviation from them carries different levels of social sanctions. Understanding the differences between these types of norms is important for analyzing human behavior and cultures.
Folkways
Folkways are the most basic and least standardized norms that regulate everyday interactions and activities. Deviation from folkways may elicit disapproval but usually does not result in serious punishment. Folkways cover details of etiquette, manners, style of dress, forms of greetings, and other superficial aspects of behavior that help groups function smoothly on a day-to-day basis. Some examples of folkways include saying “please” and “thank you,” holding the door for others, making eye contact during conversations, shaking hands when greeting someone, and standing in line politely.
Folkways are highly variable across different cultures and communities. Whereas lining up orderly may be expected in some societies, crowding at the front of a line could be considered normal in others. Folkways are also constantly evolving based on changes in technologies, trends, and generational differences. For instance, texting short codes like “ttyl” have replaced waving goodbye for many teenagers. Most folkways are learned and internalized at a young age through socialization and mimicry of behaviors modeled by parents, teachers, and peers. While violating folkways invokes social unease, people are usually forgiven as long as they make efforts to conform going forward.
Mores
Mores are norms that are more firmly established and standardized than folkways within a social group. They regulate behaviors and practices that are considered crucial to the group’s function and identity. Deviating from mores is viewed as a serious offence that often results in strong social sanctions like condemnation, punishment, and even exile in extreme cases. Examples of behaviors governed by mores include sexual morality codes, family structures and gender roles, religious rituals, styles of child-rearing, attitudes towards crimes, and economic practices such as rules around property and inheritance.
Common mores enforced in many traditional societies include prohibitions against incest, rules requiring monogamous marital relationships, norms privileging patriarchal family systems, taboos against committing violent crimes, and the importance placed on concepts like familial piety and community obligations. Mores are also subject to change across time in response to socioeconomic transformations. For instance, in Western cultures today, premarital sex, divorce, and single parenthood are no longer socially unacceptable as they once were in more conservative eras. Mores occupy a middle ground between superficial folkways and deep-rooted taboos as a society’s core organizing principles and markers of collective identity. Questioning or violating them is seen as a direct challenge to the social order.
Taboos
Taboos refer to the strongest type of norms that are deeply entrenched in a culture’s psyche and violate core religious or spiritual beliefs. Behaviors prohibited under taboos are almost universally forbidden and elicits severe social and religious punishments if broken. Common taboos across human societies include incest, harming sacred objects/places, cannibalism, violating burial customs, committing blasphemy, substance abuse, and harmful practices against vulnerable groups like animals, children, or elders. Examples of cultural taboos include the ancient Roman prohibition against shedding family members’ blood, Islamic taboos against gambling and alcohol consumption, and Hindu taboos against eating beef.
Compared to mores, taboos have much deeper symbolic significance and are core components of cultural worldviews. They regulate behaviors at a metaphysical level by demarcating what is “clean/pure” versus “unclean/impure.” Deviation from taboos threatens cosmic and supernatural order according to local belief systems. As such, taboos are virtually impossible to violate without consequences in communities where they are entrenched. Transgressing taboos often invokes divinely-ordained pollution, disease, curses or doom for perpetrators according to cultural mythologies. They continue to play an important role in maintaining cultural-religious traditions by acting as strong preservative forces against change or normalization of proscribed behaviors. While some taboos may evolve gradually over generations, most endure despite immense pressure from globalization and modernization.
Conclusion
Distinguishing between folkways, mores, and taboos provides important insights into different types of norms that govern individual and community behaviors across human societies. Folkways represent the most superficial conventions while taboos embody the deepest level regulations arising from core religious-cultural worldviews. Mores occupy an intermediate ground as quasi-religious norms crucial for group cohesion. All three types of norms serve important socialization functions by promoting order, stability, identity formation and continuity of cultural heritage over time. Understanding their differences enables better analysis of norms-related dynamics within communities and how socio-cultural transformations impact normative systems across history. The three categories of norms – folkways, mores, and taboos – represent key concepts in social sciences for exploring human behavior and cultural diversity.
Andrew Stroud