Theories of Norms and Institutions

Abstract

Social norms and normative deviance are not direct topics of investigation in this book, but the self system we propose does impinge on these matters. In this chapter we first show how our self model merges with affect control theory—a framework that does focus on normative matters—to provide a single multi-level cybernetic system regarding affect control in social relations. Second, we show that this cybernetic model, when applied to the topic of deviance, organizes, simplifies, and resolves incongruities in the complex hypotheses that have been derived in a kindred approach from psychology. In the final part of this chapter, we review prior theoretical statements regarding social institutions that have influenced our own formulation, and point out how our approach to social institutions differs from predecessors.