How are standards changing? Standards are ideas that occupy our minds and indicate what should or should be done, they can also express what is expected of us and are generally shared by a group of people, all groups have their own rules and these are not trivial because they indicate and influence how each group feels, thinks and acts.
Sometimes when the group’s identity is important, the group’s rules will guide the behavior. If we walk down a street and find a beggar asking for money, we may or may not have given something. to give alms it is very likely that we have given them money, because giving alms would be the norm of our group.
- “When we talk about our heritage and our ideals.
- Our code and our standards?The things we live and teach our children?Do we know that they are preserved or diminished according to the freedom we have to exchange ideas and feelings?.
- – Walt”.
- Disney-.
Can the rules of a group be negotiated ?, can they result from an agreement between the members of the group or can they also be implicitly established from the behavior of the people; when imitated by other members, they eventually become group standards. the fact that the observed actions play a role or help the survival of the group.
But these are not the only means by which standards are born, but they can also be developed in a much less democratic way. The leader of a group may be the person who decides the rules on their own, or be an exemplary member of the group and end up unintentionally creating rules, when a particularly representative or exemplary member stands out and begins to feel, think or act differently, a tension is generated that resolves, among other things, when the other members of the group incorporate this new form of behavior into their standards.
“Standards and models destroy genius and art. “William Hazlitt
There are two types of rules that can exist in groups, we are talking about descriptive standards and prescriptive standards, descriptive standards are those that correspond to what group members do in a given situation, when we do not know what to do, we look to get information about other people’s behavior, in this way we can, in the worst case , imitate them. Also, if others support us after we imitate them, it’s easy to understand that we will continue to do so. These standards generally arise from the imitation of the most important members of the group.
The regulatory rules indicate what the members of the group approve or disapprove of, indicate what can be done and what cannot be done, have a moral, show what is considered good and what is considered bad, their respect is motivated by the rewards and punishments imposed by the group. Those who do not comply are punished and those who follow them are strengthened and rewarded.
Group standards have different functions. Individual roles, those that affect each group member when viewed separately, and social functions, which affect the group as a whole, can be distinguished for all its members. The primary individual function of standards is to provide direction to understand reality. Standards tell each person how the world works, how they should think, feel, and act.
Among the social functions, we can highlight different objectives, in this case regulate relations between members, indicate how to behave with others. They also specify the roles and objectives of the group, on the other hand, they maintain a group identity.
If there are rules, there are rules that will break them. Group members always have the option to circumvent their rules. In these cases, groups have other rules that try to prevent that from happening. Typically, the standard is to rebuke members who do not respect the established, on the contrary, respectful members receive awards and are recognized as perfect examples, this is called effect.
This serves to get rid of group members who contribute negatively to social identity. Let’s look at an example below.
When someone who is part of a group begins to disagree with the rest, the group as a whole begins to move away from the person and look at the subject from a position of disapproval, with this withdrawal, this person is no longer recognized as someone in the group The person is considered a black sheep, which no longer corresponds , so identity is maintained.
“When someone does not conform to cultural norms, culture has to protect itself. -Robert M. Pirsig-