Kimmo Eriksson, Pontus Strimling, Irina Vartanova, Brent Simpson, Minna Persson, Khalid Ahmed Abdi, Niv Ad, Alisher Aldashev, Habib Mohammad Ali, Maurizio Alì, Khatai Aliyev, Yasser Alrefaee, Alberth Estuardo Alvarado Ortiz, Per Andersson, Giulia Andrighetto, Gizem Arıkan, John Jamir Benzon R. Aruta, Lutete Christian Ayikwa, Jonatan Baños-Chaparro, Davide Barrera, Justina Baršytė, Birzhan Batkeyev, Azma Batool, Elizaveta Berezina, Stéphanie Ngandu Bimina, Marie Björnstjerna, Sheyla Blumen, Paweł Boski, Eva Boštjančič, Yap Boum, Marie Briguglio, Kagonbe Bruno, Huyen Thi Thu Bui, Tomás Caycho‐Rodríguez, Yanyan Chen, Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, Hoon‐Seok Choi, Carlos C. Contreras‐Ibáñez, Dinka Čorkalo Biruški, Christian Enrique Cruz Torres, Andrea Czakó, Piyanjali de Zoysa, Zsolt Demetrovics, Bojana M. Dinić, Saša Drače, Rita W. El‐Haddad, Jan B. Engelmann, Ignacio Escudero Pérez, Hyun Euh, Xia Fang, Celine Frank, Esteban Freidín, Márta Fülöp, Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia, M. Jimenez, Ragna B. Garðarsdóttir, Alin Gavreliuc, Colin Mathew Hugues D. Gill, Biljana Gjoneska, Andreas Glöckner, Sylvie Graf, Ani Grigoryan, Katarzyna Growiec, Brian W. Haas, Geoffrey Haddock, Stavros P. Hadjisolomou, Nina Hadžiahmetović, Mohammad Ali, Eemeli Hakoköngäs, Peter Haľama, Given Hapunda, Andree Hartanto, Mahsa Hazrati, Boris Christian Herbas Torrico, Szilárd Holka, Martina Hřebı́čková, John A. Hunter, Moudachirou Ibikounlé, Dzintra Iliško, Harpa Lind Jónsdóttir, Zivile Kaminskiene, Hansika Kapoor, Iva Kapović, Gassemi Karim, Kerry Kawakami, Narine Khachatryan, Julian B. Kirschner, Jonah Kiruja, Toko Kiyonari, Michal Kohút, Shazia Kousar, Besni̇k A. Krasniqi, Ludovic Lado, Miguel Landa–Blanco, Barbara Landon, Žan Lep, Lisa M. Leslie, Yang Li, Kadi Liik, Ming‐Jen Lin
Every social situation that people encounter in their daily lives comes with a set of unwritten rules about what behavior is considered appropriate or inappropriate. These everyday norms can vary across societies: some societies may have more permissive norms in general or for certain behaviors, or for certain behaviors in specific situations. In a preregistered survey of 25,422 participants across 90 societies, we map societal differences in 150 everyday norms and show that they can be explained by how societies prioritize individualizing moral foundations such as care and liberty versus binding moral foundations such as purity. Specifically, societies with more individualistic morality tend to have more permissive norms in general (greater liberty) and especially for behaviors deemed vulgar (less purity), but they exhibit less permissive norms for behaviors perceived to have negative consequences in specific situations (greater care). By comparing our data with available data collected twenty years ago, we find a global pattern of change toward more permissive norms overall but less permissive norms for the most vulgar and inconsiderate behaviors. This study explains how social norms vary across behaviors, situations, societies, and time.