Pole A: Progressive score 0
Revising norms that exclude. Common argument for it: many old norms excluded people, and society improves by revising them.
POLITICAL POSITION · DIMENSION 11 OF 12
Social norms: progressive or traditionalist
Social norms is the dimension that records how a person responds to changes in social norms on family, sexuality, gender and behavior.
What it is
Social norms is the dimension that records how a person responds to changes in social norms on family, sexuality, gender and behavior. At the Progressive pole, norms are revised when they stop protecting rights or autonomy, and change is welcome; at the Traditionalist pole, inherited norms hold accumulated experience, and change has to prove it is better.
What the dimension covers
- family and marriage
- sexuality and gender identity
- social roles and behavior
- the pace of change in social norms
The two poles
0 · ProgressiveTraditionalist · 100
Pole B: Traditionalist score 100
Preserving inherited norms. Common argument for it: institutions such as family and community give stability, and fast changes have effects no one foresaw.
How the instrument measures it
The Evidence instrument (schema evidence-pol-1) records this dimension as a number from 0 to 100: 0 is the Progressive pole, 100 is the Traditionalist pole. The number comes from your answers to the questionnaire or from a result imported from another instrument by URL; either way it is a self-assessment, computed in your browser, and nothing reaches the server without an explicit action from you. With no answer for this dimension, it stays unknown (UNKNOWN), never 50.
| No. | Statement | Agreeing points to |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | Fast changes in social norms tend to weaken social cohesion. | Traditionalist |
| 23 | Laws should keep up with changes in social norms, even when they go against long-standing traditions. | Progressive |
| 35 | The traditional family model should be the one public policy encourages. | Traditionalist |
| 47 | Same-sex couples should have exactly the same family rights as other couples. | Progressive |
Formula p = (resposta - 1) / 4 if agreeing points to Traditionalist; p = 1 - (resposta - 1) / 4 if it points to Progressive; placar = 100 * media(p)
There are 4 original statements, with opposite directions to reduce the effect of agreeing with everything. Answers run from 1 to 5 (1 Strongly disagree, 2 Disagree, 3 Neither agree nor disagree, 4 Agree, 5 Strongly agree); "Don't know" does not score. Each answer becomes a position between 0 and 1, the score is the mean position times 100, and confidence combines coverage (how many of the 4 statements scored) and consistency (how far answers point the same way): high from 0.75, medium from 0.50.
In the Evidence portable format, this dimension is the morality parameter of the profile URL. Scale, evidence states and limitations are in the instrument method; the terms are in the glossary.
Why it is a separate dimension
It differs from Religion, which is about the place of religion in institutions, and from State power, which is about how much the State may impose. Social norms is about the direction of social values, whoever promotes them.
Compare with Religion and State power.
Frequently asked questions
Is Social norms the same as the liberal and conservative axis?
It is part of it. Opinion surveys often merge Social norms, Religion and State power into one cultural axis; the instrument keeps them apart because answers can diverge.
How do international surveys measure traditional values?
The World Values Survey measures, in survey waves by country, traditional and secular-rational values, among others; the Chapel Hill Expert Survey places parties on a cultural axis. Those are aggregates of populations or parties; the dimension records a person's preference.
What does a score of 50 on Social norms mean?
That the answers ended halfway between Progressive and Traditionalist, through balance or through a mix of answers in both directions. It is not the same as moderation or the political center, and it says nothing about the other 11 dimensions.
Is my result sent or published?
No. The computation runs in your browser, nothing reaches the server without an explicit action from you, and the result page is not indexed by search engines. Political opinion is sensitive personal data under Brazil's LGPD (art. 5, II, and art. 11).
Literature and references
- ConservatismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: the defense of inherited institutions and gradual change.
- LiberalismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: individual autonomy and State neutrality on ways of life.
- World Values SurveyTraditional and secular-rational values measured by country, in waves.
- Chapel Hill Expert SurveyParty positions on a cultural axis, besides the economic one.
Reference readings on the topic. None of them validates the Evidence instrument, and no text, question or weight was copied from them.
Conceptual sources of the instrument
How law relates to social norms: keeping up with social change (progressive) or preserving inherited norms (traditionalist).
Other dimensions
- Related dimensionReligionIrreligious · Religious
- Related dimensionState powerSecurity · Liberty
- PreviousReligionIrreligious · Religious
- NextTechnologyTechnology · Biology