Fig. 3: Behavior-specific and situation-specific global everyday norms.
A A color-coded matrix illustrating the global appropriateness ratings (averaged over 71 societies) of fifteen behaviors in each of ten situations. B Scatter plot illustrating appropriateness ratings of fifteen specific behaviors aggregated across various situations (centered on the mean across behaviors) and their strong negative association with the sum of behavior-specific concerns about vulgarity and inconsiderateness. The index ‘b’ indicates that measures refer to behaviors. C Scatter plot illustrating appropriateness ratings of 15 behaviors in ten specific situations (n = 150 situated behaviors, centered on the mean across situations for each behavior) and their strong negative association with the sum of situation-specific concerns about inconsiderateness and lacking sense. The index ‘xb’ indicates that measures refer to situated behaviors. Gray shading indicates 95% confidence intervals.
An important new study, led by researchers from Mälardalen University (MDU, Sweden) and the Institute for Futures Studies (IFFS), in collaboration with over 100 researchers worldwide, sheds light on how social norms vary across cultures yet share fundamental commonalities.
As someone who has travelled extensively in Western and Eastern Europe, North Africa, Kuwait, Oman, India, and the USA, I can personally attest to cultural differences that extend far beyond language. Everyday activities such as driving, for instance, reveal how deeply embedded these norms are. It can take several days to adapt to local expectations, and even then, you may still be greeted with an indignant horn or an icy stare for something entirely unremarkable in your own country.
Creationists often claim that morality is a divine gift — that without their god, we would have no concept of right and wrong. As an atheist, I grow weary of being told that I “hate God” because I supposedly “want to sin”, or that I lack a moral compass. Such accusations typically reveal more about the accuser than the accused. Many fundamentalists who level these charges online seem less concerned with moral reasoning than with projecting their own supposed moral superiority. The stench of hypocrisy is rarely far away when piety becomes a performance.
Ever since Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of the “meme” — a unit of cultural inheritance analogous to a gene — in The Selfish Gene, we have had a clear framework for understanding how cultural traits evolve. Memes form complex structures known as “memplexes”, and some of these can behave parasitically, using their hosts to ensure their own propagation.
Just as evolving organisms form clades with shared major features but differing details, human cultures share foundational moral principles — prohibitions against needless killing, reciprocal respect (“treat others as you would want to be treated”), and the protection of children, among others. What varies are the details, both across time and geography.
Cultural norms in society.The recent study reinforces this evolutionary perspective. It concludes that cultural norms are not static but change globally in consistent patterns, following a shared evolutionary trajectory. This research is further explained in a Mälardalen University news release.
- Cultural Norms and Their Evolution (General Overview)
Background:
Cultural norms are the unwritten rules that guide acceptable behaviour within a society. They shape how people interact, communicate, and make moral judgements. These norms develop through historical experience, environmental conditions, technological change, and social learning.
Key Points:
- Norms are shared expectations, not laws.
- They vary widely between societies but often address universal human concerns (e.g., cooperation, fairness, harm avoidance).
- Cultural norms evolve over time, influenced by migration, trade, media, and globalisation.
- Like biological traits, they can be transmitted, adapted, and sometimes discarded.
- Memes and Cultural Transmission
Background:
The concept of the “meme” was introduced by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976). A meme is a unit of cultural inheritance — a behaviour, idea, or style that spreads within and between societies.
Key Points:
- Memes are transmitted through imitation, communication, and teaching.
- Memes can cluster into memplexes — coherent sets of ideas (e.g., religions, political ideologies).
- Some memplexes act parasitically, spreading even if they are not beneficial to the host.
- Cultural evolution is analogous to biological evolution: variation, selection, and transmission drive change.
- Morality Without the Supernatural
Background:
Many religious traditions claim moral codes originate from divine authority. However, modern anthropology, psychology, and evolutionary biology suggest that moral behaviours predate organised religion.
Key Points:
- Moral instincts such as empathy, fairness, and harm avoidance have evolutionary roots in social animals.
- These instincts allow for cooperation and group survival.
- Cultures build upon these shared instincts to codify moral norms in diverse ways.
- Atheists and secular societies rely on shared human values and social contracts, not divine command, for their moral frameworks.
- Cultural Evolution vs. Biological Evolution
Comparison Biological Evolution Cultural Evolution Driven by genetic inheritance Driven by social learning and imitation Slow, generational Rapid, can change within a single generation Mutation, selection, inheritance Innovation, adoption, transmission Limited to living organisms Transcends individuals (books, media, internet)
Takeaway:
Cultural evolution operates faster and more flexibly than biological evolution, allowing human societies to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances.
- Key Milestones in the Study of Cultural Evolution
- 1871: Charles Darwin suggests cultural traits may evolve through natural selection.
- 1930s–60s: Anthropologists document global cultural variation.
- 1976: Dawkins coins “meme” to explain cultural transmission.
- 1990s: Emergence of memetics as an academic field.
- 2020s: Large-scale cross-cultural studies use data science to trace the evolution of norms globally.
Global study reveals similarities and differences between everyday norms
In one of the largest global intercultural studies of its kind, an international team of researchers has mapped the unwritten social rules and everyday norms in 90 different societies. Despite several differences, mainly depending on the situation in question, the results show a common moral compass.
A new study, led by researchers from Mälardalen University (MDU) and the Institute for Futures Studies (IFFS) in collaboration with over 100 researchers worldwide, provides unique insight into the social norms that govern our lives. By collecting data from more than 25,000 participants, the researchers have created a global map of how we judge everything from reading the newspaper in the library to listening to music on headphones at a funeral.
Every social situation has its unwritten rules, but how similar or different are these rules around the world? That was the big question we wanted to answer, says Kimmo Eriksson, one of the study's lead authors and a professor at the Academy of Education, Culture, and Communication at MDU. You might think that the cultural differences would be enormous, but we found the opposite. The most striking result is the high degree of consistency.
The study shows that the greatest variation in what is considered appropriate and inappropriate is not between cultures, but between different situations – regardless of where in the world you are. All over the world, it is considered inappropriate to listen to music on headphones at a funeral, but appropriate to do so when walking down the street. This suggests that humanity shares a common understanding of the social context, says Kimmo Eriksson.
Similarities outweigh differences
The study also shows that there are gradual differences between societies in terms of their everyday norms. Societies that place greater emphasis on individual rights and well-being are usually more permissive, but they may have stricter norms against behaviors that directly harm or disturb others. Societies that place greater emphasis on tradition and group loyalty have stricter norms against behaviors that are considered vulgar, even if they do not harm anyone. But the similarities are much greater than the differences.In a polarized world, it can feel like we are fundamentally different, but our research shows a deep and widespread commonality in how we view right and wrong in everyday life. This provides a hopeful perspective on what unites us across cultural and national boundaries.
Pontus Strimling, co-lead author.
Institute for Futures Studies
Stockholm, Sweden.
Publication:
AbstractThe findings of this global study drive a stake through the heart of the claim that morality originates from a divine source. If a god were truly dispensing moral law, we would expect humanity to have received a single, uniform moral code. Instead, what we find is precisely what evolutionary theory predicts: shared ethical foundations shaped by universal human needs — such as cooperation, fairness, and protection of the vulnerable — expressed through different cultural lenses. These norms arise from human societies themselves, not from supernatural diktat.
Every social situation that people encounter in their daily lives comes with a set of unwritten rules about what behavior is considered appropriate or inappropriate. These everyday norms can vary across societies: some societies may have more permissive norms in general or for certain behaviors, or for certain behaviors in specific situations. In a preregistered survey of 25,422 participants across 90 societies, we map societal differences in 150 everyday norms and show that they can be explained by how societies prioritize individualizing moral foundations such as care and liberty versus binding moral foundations such as purity. Specifically, societies with more individualistic morality tend to have more permissive norms in general (greater liberty) and especially for behaviors deemed vulgar (less purity), but they exhibit less permissive norms for behaviors perceived to have negative consequences in specific situations (greater care). By comparing our data with available data collected twenty years ago, we find a global pattern of change toward more permissive norms overall but less permissive norms for the most vulgar and inconsiderate behaviors. This study explains how social norms vary across behaviors, situations, societies, and time.
Introduction
Social norms are informal, widely shared rules that govern behavior within a group or society1. Foundational work on social norms distinguishes them from formal laws, highlighting their role in maintaining social order through mechanisms of approval and disapproval2,3. While large cross-cultural surveys regularly measure norms for morally contentious issues like abortion and homosexuality4,5,6, the everyday norms governing mundane behaviors in familiar situations—such as in an office or a park—have received less scientific attention. Existing research on these everyday norms shows that while individuals within a society generally agree on the appropriateness of behaviors in specific situations, these ratings can differ significantly between societies and change over time7,8,9,10. However, the underlying factors contributing to this variation remain poorly understood. This focus on mundane situations aligns with an emerging trend in moral psychology to move beyond classic moral dilemmas and study the more common conflicts people face in their daily lives11. But most of this work has focused on dilemmas within a single culture, leaving large-scale cross-cultural variation and temporal change in everyday norms under-explored—a gap the current study aims to address.
In this paper, we propose that variation in everyday norms can be understood through the lens of societal moral values. The field of moral psychology offers several important frameworks for understanding moral judgment and its cultural variation. For instance, the Theory of Dyadic Morality posits that all moral judgments are rooted in a universal template of perceived harm12, while Morality-as-Cooperation theory suggests that morality evolved as a suite of distinct solutions to promote cooperation13. Another prominent framework, the Schwartz Theory of Basic Human Values, identifies ten universal values that cultures prioritize differently14. While these theories provide rich, detailed maps of the moral domain, it is not clear what they imply about the appropriateness of various everyday behaviors in specific situations. Our aim is to test a parsimonious model capable of explaining broad patterns of norm variation across a large and diverse set of societies and situated behaviors15. For this purpose, we draw on Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)16. MFT suggests that moral judgments are based on a set of intuitive foundations that, we will argue, are also applicable to everyday behavior.
A key distinction within MFT is between individualizing foundations (Care, Fairness, Liberty), which focus on protecting individuals, and binding foundations (Loyalty, Authority, Purity), which focus on maintaining group cohesion and social order17,18. Cross-cultural data suggest that societies vary along a dimension reflecting the relative priority they place on individualizing versus binding concerns19. We refer to this societal-level dimension as individualistic morality. We contend that this single dimension offers a powerful yet simple tool for predicting how and why everyday norms vary15,16,17,18,19. The moral foundations terminology was developed for moral judgments and is therefore not directly applicable to everyday norms. Our approach is instead to identify everyday concerns that people recognize and examine whether they can be conceived as individualizing or binding concerns. We identify three primary concerns:
- Inconsiderateness: This reflects whether a behavior has negative consequences for others (externalities)20,21,22. As this violates the individualizing foundation of Care, we expect this concern to be more impactful in societies with more individualistic morality.
- Vulgarity: This refers to behaviors that are perceived as coarse, filthy, or indecent23. From an MFT perspective, this concern is linked to the binding foundation of Purity24. Therefore, we expect it to be less impactful in societies with more individualistic morality. While we link vulgarity to the non-consequentialist concern of Purity, we acknowledge that other theories, like the Theory of Dyadic Morality, might construe such violations as a form of indirect harm (e.g., causing offense), an overlap we will return to in our discussion.
- Lacking sense: This reflects a concern that a given behavior has negative or no positive consequences for the actor themselves25. We hypothesize this concern will be more impactful in societies with more individualistic morality, not because of a direct link to a moral foundation, but through a stronger reliance on common-is-moral heuristics26. Prior research suggests that where individuals rely less on traditional authorities for moral guidance (a feature of individualistic morality), they are more likely to infer inappropriateness from statistical rarity or oddness27,28. A behavior that lacks sense is likely uncommon and thus may be judged more harshly where this intuition is stronger.
In addition to these behavior-specific concerns, the value of Liberty, the principle that people should be free to act as they see fit, is a general individualizing concern15. We therefore expect it to be prioritized more in societies with higher individualistic morality and, due to the general scope of this concern, lead to more permissive norms overall.
Based on this framework, we test hypotheses about how everyday norms vary across societies and change over time. Assuming the concerns a behavior elicits are largely consistent across cultures15,19,29 (an assumption we also test), we obtain the following Hypothesis about Societal Variation in everyday norms, addressing which societies have stronger everyday norms overall, which societies have stronger everyday norms for specific behaviors, and which societies have stronger everyday norms for specific behaviors in specific situations: More individualistic morality is associated with (a) higher overall appropriateness ratings of situated behaviors (due to liberty), (b) higher appropriateness ratings of behaviors that elicit binding concerns (vulgarity) and lower appropriateness ratings of behaviors that elicit individualizing concerns (inconsiderateness), and (c) lower appropriateness ratings of behaviors that elicit concerns about inconsiderateness or lacking sense in specific situations.
We can also use the same framework to address how everyday norms change over time, a topic of increasing interest among social scientists30,31,32,33. Our framework predicts that everyday norms would change if the relative priority placed on individualizing versus binding concerns shifts. Several macro-level theories address such value change, proposing different drivers for this shift, such as the diffusion of global cultural scripts (World Society Theory34), historical ecological pressures (Pathogen Stress Theory35,36), or socioeconomic development (Modernization Theory4,37,38). While each theory offers valuable insights, it is Modernization Theory that most directly posits a continuous and directional global trend: that economic development fosters a value shift toward greater individualism, emphasizing liberty and care while the importance of tradition and purity declines. In other words, this describes a global increase in what we term individualistic morality. This clear directional prediction allows us to translate our hypothesis on societal variation into a Hypothesis on Change in everyday norms: Change over time in global everyday norms is characterized by (a) increasing overall appropriateness ratings, (b) increasing appropriateness ratings for behaviors that elicit binding concerns and decreasing ratings for those that elicit individualizing concerns, and (c) decreasing ratings for behaviors that elicit individualizing concerns in specific situations.
To test these hypotheses, we conducted the Global Study of Everyday Norms, a large-scale survey in 90 societies measuring norms for 15 behaviors in 10 situations. We also compare our data to a study conducted twenty years prior to examine norm change in 26 overlapping societies8. Figure 1 illustrates the geographical scope of this study.Fig. 1: The geographical scope of the study.
A Societal variation in norms is studied across 90 societies colored red. B Norm change is studied in 26 societies, colored blue, for which data are available from two studies, 20 years apart.
[…]
Conclusion
In conclusion, this study uncovers a global grammar of everyday norms. We find striking similarities in what people around the world frown upon, with norms varying far more across situations than across societies. This variation is systematically structured by a few everyday concerns whose relevance is weighted by a single dimension of cultural values. An implication of our findings is that if someone moves to a different society and questions the normativity of a mundane behavior in a specific situation, the answer is likely to be similar to what they experienced in their original society—however, if relocating to a less individualistic society, they may find the norms to be somewhat stricter, particularly for behaviors perceived as vulgar, though less so for those deemed inconsiderate. Moreover, everyday norms are not static; they appear to be changing in consistent ways globally, suggesting a shared trajectory of cultural evolution. Our findings provide insights into the interplay of human universals and cultural differences that shape social life across the globe.
Eriksson, K., Strimling, P., Vartanova, I. et al.
Everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures. Commun Psychol 3(145) (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00324-4
Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
This also exposes as bogus the claim by organised religions to guardianship of society’s morals on the spurious grounds that they alone possess a “direct line” to a divine lawgiver. Far from being the authors of morality, religions have merely hijacked pre-existing ethical principles, repackaging them with supernatural branding to lend themselves undeserved authority. In many cases, these institutions have even resisted moral progress, lagging behind the evolving standards of the societies they claim to guide.
The creationist refrain that without their god there would be no right or wrong is not only intellectually lazy but historically illiterate. Moral instincts long predate modern religions, and they flourish just as well — often better — in secular societies. The idea that an atheist lacks a moral compass is a projection, not an argument: a transparent attempt to claim moral superiority where none exists. It is an assertion of authority, not a demonstration of it.
By understanding morality as the product of cultural and evolutionary processes, we strip religion of its self-appointed moral monopoly. Organised faiths do not own morality — they exploit it. Human beings developed ethical frameworks through cooperation and shared survival, not divine revelation. That fact doesn’t merely undermine a cherished creationist talking point; it leaves it in ruins.
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