Norms

Norms are the acceptable standards of behavior within a group that are shared by the members.

When we learned about motivation, we talked a little about the Hawthorne Studies. To jog your memory, Hawthorne Electric hired researchers to do a study to determine if higher levels of light increased the production of a work group.

A full-scale appreciation of group behavior and its influence on work groups was uncovered by the Hawthorne Studies in the 1930s. What was discovered was that groups established a set of behaviors. Some of these behaviors were spurred on simply because they were being observed. In other situations, the group collectively established a group norm of production - and those individuals that violated the norm by overachieving were ridiculed for not following the established, albeit unspoken, norms.

There are common classes of norms:

  • Performance norms: the group will determine what is an acceptable level of effort, product and outcome should exist in the workplace.
  • Appearance norms: the group will determine how members should dress, when they should be busily working and when they can take a break, and what kind of loyalty is shown to the leader and company.
  • Social arrangement norms: the group regulates interaction between its members.
  • Allocation of resources norms: the group or the organization originates the standards by which pay, new equipment, and even difficult tasks are assigned.

If you wish to be accepted by a particular group, you may conform to that group's norms even before you've become a part of it. Conformity is adjusting one's behavior to align with the norms of a particular group. By watching and observing that group to better understand its expectations, you are using the group as a reference group. A reference group is an important group to which individuals belong or hope to belong and with whose norms individuals are likely to conform.

When people act outside a group's norms - perhaps a manager makes sexual advances to his assistant, or one co-worker spreads vicious rumors about another - this is referred to as deviant workplace behavior.