How social norms evolved over time and differ across 90 countries

Recommendable! Who would have guessed that kissing or flirting at a job interview is not a good idea? This seems to be universally accepted.

"When humans interact with each other and engage in everyday activities, they typically follow various undefined rules, also known as social norms. ...

As part of their study, Eriksson, Strimling and their colleagues recruited 25,422 people living in 90 different societies worldwide and asked them to complete an online survey. This survey asked them to rate 150 everyday behaviors based on how acceptable or unacceptable they perceived them to be in specific situations. ...

In addition, they compared the survey responses to those gathered in a similar survey administered 20 years ago, to shed light on how social norms had changed over time. ..."

From the abstract:

"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."

How social norms evolved over time and differ across countries

Everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures (open access)

Behavior-specific and situation-specific global everyday norms. A color-coded matrix illustrating the global appropriateness ratings (averaged over 71 societies) of fifteen behaviors in each of ten situations.