[UPLIFTING MUSIC] - Something that's always amazed me about the way the world works is that as much time as we spend thinking about how different we are from everyone else and the difference between everyone that we see, when it comes down to it, we're remarkably similar. Just think about it for a second. 

When you go out in public, there may be some differences in how people behave. But pretty much, we all largely conform to certain standards of conduct. Some of those standards are universal and apply to a variety of settings. Some are very specific. 

We even have ideas on not just how everyone should behave, but also certain expectations of people, based on who they are, what they do, and which group we identify them as belonging to. Regardless of the country you live in, there are rules that govern all of this. We may differ from time to time and from place to place, but society does a really good job of establishing rules of acceptable behavior and expectations for everyone. 

Where does this come from, though? How did you learn what to do and what not to do? How did you learn to expect certain behaviors from others, based on who they are? 

In today's video, I'm going to try to explain all of this in the most concise way possible by talking about social roles, social scripts, and social norms. All three of these can really be thought of as an extension of the prototype model, which I've discussed several times throughout this video series. I even put a couple of the links in the comment section to some of the earlier videos I did so you can check them out as a refresher. 

Essentially, the prototype model says that throughout our lives, we gain experience and learn new information that helps us make sense out of the world around us. The more we learn and experience, the clearer our understanding of the world becomes. But this is a dynamic process. It's constantly evolving. We frequently think we have the world figured out, only to discover differently. 

The way in which we learn is quite diverse, also. We certainly learn a lot early on from our parents and immediate family. Then, from school and friends, and even from just randomly watching people around us every single day. In my opinion, some of the largest influences comes from television, movies, and video games. 

This is especially true of our understanding of events and experiences that most of us don't directly deal with in the real world-- things like our understanding of what war is, or being in a natural disaster, or being in jail. That last one is really interesting, And I'm going to come back on it later in the video. 

So all the things I just mentioned go into our understanding of social roles, social scripts, and social norms. But what are these topics, specifically? A social role is your understanding of a specific pattern of behavior expected of yourself or someone else based on their role. That term, "role," is very general, too. It can cover a professions, but also things like your role as a member of a specific race, ethnicity, religion, or region. It can also be hobbies, social groups you belong to, and even interests you may have. 

Often, we also have role expectations of other types of social roles, like how we expect a mother to behave, or a significant other. Even things like behaviors that we view as being masculine or feminine are really just extensions of social roles as well. If you ever heard somebody say men don't cry, this is a perpetuation of a social role that person happens to have of men. 

We all have numerous different roles, too. I'm a husband, a son, a friend, a college professor, white, American, I'm from the South, I'm a man, and so many other different things. I have expectations of how I should act with each of those roles, and others have their expectations of how I should act based on them, as well. 

Social scripts are broader, in that they apply to everyone, regardless of their role. But they're very specific to a certain situation. For example, if you're at a store, at least where I come from, it's expected that when you're ready to pay, you line up single file at the cash register, and you face the cashier until they're able to ring you up. How about getting into an elevator? Most of us walk into the elevator, go to the back, generally try to give other people that are present a little bit of space, and tend to avoid eye contact, other than to exchange pleasantries. 

These are specific behaviors expected in particular situations. It doesn't matter who you are. You're still expected to do them. 

Social norms are like social scripts in that they are broad in who they apply to, but they don't just apply to a specific situation. Rather, they apply to many different situations. For example-- and again, based on where I come from-- something like picking your nose is very frowned upon. It doesn't matter who you are, where you are-- you are expected to not pick your nose, especially if you're in public. This would be a great example of a social norm. 

Now, the thing that's interesting about all three of these is that we often are not too sure when we learn them, and maybe aren't even consciously aware of them all the time-- at least, not until somebody violates one of them. For example, you may not think you have any expectations of how I should act as a professor in college. But what if you were a college student on the first day of class, and I walked in wearing flip-flops, a t-shirt, and drinking a beer? Chances are that you would look at me kind of weird, wouldn't you? 

How about the example I gave of social scripts? Say I'm standing in front of you in line at the grocery store, and instead of facing the cashier, I turn around and look at you. Would you treat me differently? Would you think I was odd? How about if I started to pick my nose? I'm willing to bet it would definitely gross you out. 

This is the thing about all three of these-- we really may not be that aware of them, but I'm willing to bet as soon as someone doesn't follow them, it's going to be noticeable. The reactions we get from people when we violate these social rules are exactly what helps societies enforce them. Rarely are they enforced through people teaching them directly or telling people what to do. They're enforced through how people treat you. If you play by the rules, you're treated better. If you don't, you're treated like you're the oddball, the stranger, the weirdo. 

While this may sound like some sort of dystopian level of conformity, it actually is a pretty good thing. These unspoken rules are what help people live together in pretty close contact without destroying one another. Just think for a second about the animal world. The more you see animals in close proximity, the more structure they often are required to have. Think of things like ants, or bees, or even pack animals, like chickens, dogs, cats. After all, while I think everyone should be allowed to be unique and weird as they want, I also don't want to live in a world where people are walking around picking their nose. 

All right. Kind of enough about picking noses, though. So one of the things that's interesting about social scripts, roles, and norms is that we aren't always aware of how much they play a role, in a very subconscious way, in our judgment of other people. I always laugh when I think about this, because there's a great example my wife and I experience every time we go to this small neighborhood bakery by our house. 

We go there all the time and get lunch. Usually, I like to eat a salad, and my wife will usually get a sandwich. This bakery is one of those places where you order your food, and they give you a number, and then bring the food to your table when it's done. Well, almost always, when they bring us our food, they'll place my wife's sandwich in front of me, and my salad in front of my wife. Why? 

Well, it'd be hard to not think it has to do with a social role of women preferring salad more than men. Remember that we learn how to make sense out of the world based on our experiences and knowledge, not necessarily on reality. This opens the door for implicit bias, and even worse, things like stereotypes and discrimination, which I'm going to cover in another video. 

On a side note, try the sandwich/salad thing for yourself, and tell me what happens in the comment section below. Better yet, if you can think of another example of social scripts, roles, or norms being applied incorrectly, please share it with me. I love hearing about this stuff. 

Now, I discussed in other videos how much I love teaching topics in social psychology because of the really cool studies that have been done. I also mentioned earlier in this video that I was going to talk about jail. Well, one of the best examples of social roles, scripts, and norms was the Stanford Prison Experiment. This experiment was done by a psychologist named Philip Zimbardo in 1971, at Stanford University in California. 

What he did in this experiment was to take a group of college students and see how they would adapt to being in a mock jail setting that he created on the campus. Basically, what he did was break the participants in the study into two groups. One group of students were given the roles of being the prison guards. The other group of students were assigned to the roles of being the prisoners. 

Now, I have to say that if you were given the role of prisoner, you really kind of got the short end of the stick in this experiment. Philip Zimbardo had the local police department actually go to their homes and mock-arrest them. They were processed and then brought to this mock prison on the campus. 

The students playing prison guards weren't really given too much direction in what they couldn't do. And within a really short period of time, the experiment quickly got out of control. I'll save you the details, because this video is already getting a little bit too long, and there are much better videos on YouTube that talk about what happened. But basically, the prison guards became increasingly cruel, and how they treated the prisoners and how the prisoners reacted to it started to kind of get out of hand. 

What's interesting, though, is that these weren't prisoners and prison guards. These were regular college students that were just arbitrarily given roles. None of the students even had any experience with the criminal justice system. 

Yet they were able to adapt to their new social role of being prisoners and prison guards pretty quick. They were able to adapt to their new social script of being in a jail, albeit a pretend one, pretty quickly. It even changed their understanding of social norms like obedience and respect for authority. 

If you've never heard about this experiment I definitely encourage you to check it out for yourself. Philip Zimbardo has actually done several books about this experiment and has spoken out about his own ethical failings in the experiment in several books, as well as several videos and TED Talks. So definitely make sure you check it out. It's pretty interesting stuff. Thanks for watching, everybody. Have a great day. 

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