GROUP NORMS

AND
PRACTICES
Learning Objectives
● Define group norms.

● Discuss the role and function of group norms.

● Discuss the effect of group norms on a group’s development.

● Identify positive sentiments, as well as challenges, associated with group

norms.

● Discuss ways in which group norms may be enforced.

● Identify processes for challenging and changing group norms.

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Hello!
I am Anthony Calda Operario
I am here because I love to give
presentations.

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1 GROUP NORMS
Let’s start with the first set of slides
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Let’s talk about this practice/process

A new vice president came into an organization. At the end of her first weekly
meeting with her staff members, she tossed a nerf ball to one of them and asked the
person to say how she was feeling. When that person finished, the vice president asked
her to toss the ball to someone else, and so on, until everyone had expressed himself or
herself. This process soon became a regular feature of the group’s meetings.

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What are group norms?
● Group norms are rules or guidelines that reflect expectations of how group members should
act and interact. They define what behaviors are acceptable or not; good or not; right or not;
or appropriate or not (O’Hair & Wieman, p. 19)
● The spoken or unspoken rules that guide how team members interact, collaborate
effectively, and work efficiently. Usually, group norms aren’t written down. Instead, they’re
implicitly agreed upon rules and standards of behavior, guided by the surrounding company
culture ground rules.
● Norms usually generated and adopted after a group’s “forming” and “storming”, which is the
“norming stage”.
● The foundation for a healthy group---and great group dynamics.

Group dynamics describe the interactions, attitudes, and behaviors between a set of people
who are working together.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUP/SOCIAL NORMS
● They are universal
● They incorporate value judgment.
●  They are relative and may vary from one society to another.
● They are variable in their range of importance. 
● Failure to comply may result in sanctions.
● They are internalized by the individuals in the group.

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Origin of Norms
Further questions need to be answered as the group gets off the ground.
● What topics are and are not appropriate for the group to discuss?
● How and to what degree will members respect and attend to each other’s statements
and viewpoints?
● How and when, if ever, will the group behave casually?
● What mechanisms will the group use to solve problems?

Any group eventually needs to deal with these questions, and the answers it
reaches will become embodied as norms.

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EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL NORMS
● Giving up a seat on public transport to an older adult or person with a disability.
● Help people with visual disabilities to cross the street.
● Chew with your mouth closed to avoid exaggerated noise.
● Wash hands before eating.
● Wipe your mouth with a napkin.
● Cover your mouth when yawning.
● Wait for the other person to finish speaking before giving an opinion.
● Take care of the environment and do not throw garbage on public roads.
● Recycle or reuse waste, instead of throwing it away with the garbage.
● Respect the physical differences of others, without ridicule or offense.

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 Implicit Norms Explicit Norms
● Norms that are stated outright, either orally
● Implicit norms are the "unwritten," and or in writing.
generally understood and agreed upon, ● norms that are codified in formal written
rules that play a significant role in the lives documents, such as FAQs (frequently
of group members. These rules are informal asked questions), which explicitly outline
and not official rules but most people the purpose and rules of the group.
adhere to them naturally. ● Part of formal policies or regulations.

Examples: Examples:
 Implicit norms that have come to exist  Wearing a uniform or answering the
surrounding the use of ATMs. telephone in a certain way.
 Sitting in exactly the same chair every day in  Policy manual, rule books, city ordinances,
college classroom. state and Federal Laws, IRS regulations

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Implicit, Explicit, Individual and Whole-
Group Norms
Individual Whole-Group

Explicit Each new member receives The group keeps minutes of

a copy of the group’s bylaws all its meetings

A person should raise Someone brings doughnuts

Implicit his/her hand to signal a or other treats every time
desire to speak the group meets

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Types of Norms

 Interaction Norms

 Procedure-oriented Norms

 Status Norms

 Achievement Norms

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Interaction Norms

Interaction norms specify how people communicate in

the group.
 Is it expected that everyone in the group should
have an opportunity to speak about any topic that
the group deals with?
 How long is it okay for one person to speak?

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Procedure Norms

Procedure-oriented norms identify how the group

functions.
 Does it hold meetings according to an established
schedule?
 Who speaks first when the group gets together?
 Does someone distribute a written record of what
happened after every time the group gets together?

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Status Norms

Status norms indicate the degree of influence that

members possess and how that influence is obtained
and expressed.
 Who decides when a group discussion has
concluded?
 When and how are officers for the group elected?

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Achievement Norms

Achievement norms relate to standards the group sets

for the nature and amount of its work.
 Must members cite readings or the comments of
authorities when they make presentations to the
group?
 What happens to a group member who completes
tasks late or fails to complete them at all?

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Key Takeaway

● Group norms, whether explicit or implicit, underlie

and affect almost all aspects of a group’s activities.

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Let’s try to answer these questions:
● Think of an unusual norm you’ve encountered in a group you were part of.
Do you know how and from whom it originated? If not, what is your
speculation about its origin?

● Identify an implicit norm in a group you were part of. Would it have been a
good idea to make the norm explicit instead? Why or why not?

● Describe a group norm you’ve experienced that dealt with either

interaction, procedure, status, or achievement.

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Norms among Group Members
● It’s important to identify a group’s norms if we’re to have a good shot at predicting
what it will do under different circumstances.

● Do members of a group understand its norms, then? And if they understand them, do
they accept and follow them? When and how do they change them? The answers to
these questions play a large role in determining the effectiveness of the members
and of the group as a whole.

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Knotty Norms
 These are norms that are difficult to understand because of vagueness and ambiguity.

Example:
 Before we had our daughter, my husband and I used to just take a couple moments before dinner and
hold hands, just to bring us to a still quiet place, before beginning the evening meal. So, when we had our little
girl, really from the time she could sit in the high chair, we held hands together, just for a few moments of
silence, and then we squeezed hands and released.
Well, we did this day in, day out, year in, year out, and then when she was old enough to count–I don’t
know how old she was–but one evening we squeezed hands and she looked up and smiled and said, “I got to
35.”
And her dad and I both looked at her and said, “What?”
And she said, “I got to 35.” “Usually I only get to 20 or 25.”
And simultaneously, my husband and I said, “You count?”
And she looked at us and said, “Well, what do you do?”
And here all these years, where we thought this was just this little almost a spiritual moment, we never
explained to her what that was about or what we were doing, and she thought we were all counting.

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 Knotty Norms
● A New Yorker cartoon shows a couple that’s apparently just left a large room filled with
people partying. The woman is reaching to press the button of an elevator, while the man
holds a tripod, a long pointer, and several large charts and graphs under his arm. The woman
says, “Frankly, Benjamin, you’re beginning to bore everyone with your statistics.”

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 Responding to Norms
 Reaction to something a person consider “normal” is likely to be a sense of comfort and assurance.
 Examine how groups enforce their norms, what happens when people violate them, and how we
can best to try to change them.
 Considering something “normal” or “the norm” in the first place can lead to challenges.
One such challenge arises from the fact that people’s opinions—about everything—differ.

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Enforcing Norms
 Enforcing a norm depends on several factors.
 the level of formality of the group,
 the importance the group attaches to a particular norm,
 and the degree and frequency with which the norm is violated.
 If a norm is of minor importance, and especially if it’s implicit, violating it may not
provoke much of a response.
 Explicit norms are often accompanied by explicit efforts to enforce them. A group may
make it clear, either orally or in writing, what will happen if someone violates such a
norm.
*Policy manual, rule books, city ordinances, state and Federal Laws, IRS regulations
 Involves a form of punishment which can be one consequence of violating a norm.

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 Enforcing Norms
What else can happen if you violate a group norm? Galanes & Adams (p. 163)[6] identify
these consequences:
 loss of influence
 Ostracism
 Exclusion
Particularly within large organizations, groups can benefit from contemplating early in
their “life cycle” just how they would expect to respond to various kinds of behavior that
violate their norms. They may decide that punishment will be part of the picture for serious
violations. If so, they should probably reflect on how members might rejoin the group or
regain their stature within it after a punishment has been administered and an offense has
been corrected.

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Challenging
and Changing
Group Norms

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Challenging and Changing Group Norms
Group situation:
In a large organization where one of the authors worked, a male colleague told a joke
while he and some other employees waited for a staff meeting to start. In the joke, a man
who thought he had cleverly avoided being executed found that he had been outsmarted
and was going to be raped instead. The people who heard the joke laughed, work-related
topics came up, and the staff meeting commenced.
Evidently, he thought that the norms of the organization permitted him to tell his joke.
When his fellow employees laughed, he probably also assumed that they found the joke to
be amusing.
After the meeting, however, as four or five people lingered in the room, one of the
female staffers spoke. “It’s really hard for me to say this,” she said, “but I’d appreciate it if
you wouldn’t tell jokes about rape.”

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Challenging and Changing Group Norms
The woman who expressed herself to the group made clear that she felt its
norms needed to be changed if jokes about rape were considered acceptable. The
woman was right in two respects. First, rape is no laughing matter, and a group norm
which condones jokes about it ought to be rejected. Second, when she told her
colleagues “It’s really hard for me to say this,” she illustrated that it’s difficult to
confront other people to propose that they change the norms they operate under.
In this case, one group member submitted a polite request to her fellow group
members. As it turned out, those members accepted her request. The man who told the
joke apologized, and to our knowledge no more jokes about rape were told in the group.

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 Challenging and Changing Group Norms
Principles and behaviors to be followed if the norm is ineffective, inappropriate, or wrong by
Lamberton and Minor-Evans(pp. 226-227)

 Confirm whether everyone in the group agrees on the purpose of the group.
 See if other people’s understanding of the group’s current norms is the same as yours.
 Explain to the group why you feel a particular norm ought to be changed.
 Offer a plan for changing the norm, including a replacement for it which you feel will
be better, drawing upon the full potential of each member.
 If necessary, change the composition and role assignments of the group.

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Key Takeaway

Once they have been established, group norms are generally

enforced in some way but can also be challenged and modified.

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 GROUP BEST PRACTICES
Do’s:
● Set an Agenda so that every team member is on the same page and working towards the same
outcome (The University of Queensland, n.d.).
● Assign roles to ensure that every team member contributes to the project equally.
● Create a shared list. Keep track of each group member’s tasks to ensure each person contributes
equally. 
● Set timelines so that all team members pace themselves accordingly and get their work done in time.
● Clarify assignment expectations, such as which parts of the assignment require collaboration.
Collaborating on work that’s meant to be done individually is a breach of academic integrity. 
● Encourage new ideas. Brainstorm ideas so that the final project includes ideas contributed by each
team member.

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 GROUP BEST PRACTICES
 Don’ts:
● Don’t dominate conversations or talk over others. Ensure that all members get to share their opinions and
raise their concerns (The University of Queensland, n.d.).
● Don’t be afraid to disagree. Don’t be scared to share your ideas even though they may not coincide with that
of another person
● Don’t let personal conflict interfere. Don’t let your personal opinions or feelings get in the way of
accomplishing your final goal.
● Don’t expect one person to do all the work. Divide the work in such a way that every member contributes to
the project equally without burdening someone with most of the work (Kenny, 2019).
● Don’t take problems directly with your professor before trying to work them out first within the group. 
● Don’t move ahead on the assignment without your group’s input. In cases where your group is unresponsive,
moving ahead on your own can make group members feel unheard, cause conflict, and ultimately create work
you’ll have to redo.

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Thanks!
Any questions?
You can find me at:
● anthonyoperario@holyinfantcollege.edu.ph
● anthonyoperario541@gmail.com

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