Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Previous work across multiple disciplines has shown thatnorms have a powerful impact on behavior. Little is known,however about how norms are represented in the mind. Herewe examine whether people’s norm representations come inreliably identifiable grades of strength. Classical models ofnorms distinguished between the broad deontic categories ofprescriptions, permissions, and prohibitions. Four studiesdemonstrate that people consistently and consensuallydistinguish between deontic expressions that denote grades ofprohibition (e.g., frowned upon < unacceptable < forbidden)and grades of prescription (e.g., called for < expected