Penn-UNICEF Summer Program on Changing Social Norms
University of Pennsylvania, July 2011
Co-Directors: Cristina Bicchieri, Gerry Mackie
General Structure of the Program
Mornings: There will be Plenary sessions on specific topics. Plenary sessions will
be moderated by one of the facilitators.
Afternoons: Participants will be randomly assigned to six discussion groups (about
8 people per discussion group). Here, Facilitators may answer questions, lead
discussions, and provide further tutorials as needed. Participants will question,
discuss, and apply material from the plenary session and from previous days’
learning. They will also begin to discuss with others, including the Facilitator, their
case studies, and how to apply course material to their cases. Bicchieri, Mackie, and
UNICEF overhead will circulate through the sessions.
First week program
Monday: Introduction, and Beginning Game Theory
9-12 Plenary Session
9-9:30: A UNICEF representative will introduce the program and orient the
participants.
The UNICEF speaker may discuss different approaches to
development, and how the social-norms perspective is applicable to development
problems.
9:30-10: Cristina Bicchieri and Gerry Mackie. The two Co-Directors and the
Facilitators will be formally introduced. The course will be outlined (Cristina) and
what participants may expect from the program will be reviewed in detail (Gerry).
Each participant comes with a case study to develop by application of course
materials. The typical day will involve a plenary lecture in the morning with limited
discussion; and small discussion groups in the afternoon allowing for close
instruction, intense discussion, and application of material to case studies.
10-12: Cristina Bicchieri. Simple game theory will be introduced in a participatory
and intuitive fashion, especially mixed-motive games (prisoner’s dilemma, trust)
and coordination games. Bicchieri will emphasize the desires, beliefs, and actions of
players facing the incentive structure of a particular game, in order to familiarize
learners with this method of analysis. The games will also be related to development
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examples. A simple typology will be presented of various ways to resolve
coordination, trust, and social-dilemma problems. After much intuitive learning,
matrix representation will be introduced. This session will give participants the
tools to model their case studies paying attention to the strategic structure of group
interactions. If needed, this plenary session will extend into the first hour of the
afternoon.
2-5: Discussion Session
Participants, guided by facilitators, will review the basic concepts learned in the
morning, and check their understanding in small-group discussion.
5-6: Reception. Each participant will introduce himself Participants will introduce
themselves to others, followed by informal exchanges.
Tuesday: Understanding Social Dilemmas
9-12: Jason Dana. Participants will be assigned to small groups and will play mock
games. We will stress the effects of communication, mutual expectations, and
common knowledge. This exercise will be set up carefully, with easy-to-understand
instructions projected on screen, distributed in handouts, and orally reviewed with
thorough question and answer. Results of the games will be reviewed, incentive
structures of the games more formally presented in matrix form, and the results
related by the instructor to development examples. Ways to resolve social dilemma
problems will be presented and discussed in further detail; special attention will be
paid to the role of social norms.
2-5: Small groups continue to work through understanding and application of game
theory. The goal is to make students explicitly aware of the strategic,
interdependent component of their decisions, how collective outcomes are
produced, and the type of expectations and emotions that are elicited in each
situation.
Wednesday: Understanding Social Norms
9-12: Cristina Bicchieri. Beginning with examples from the prior two sessions, the
various types of social practices will be introduced, at first in an intuitive fashion
with simple definitions and examples (stressing the differences among social
conventions, social norms, legal norms and moral values). The importance of
distinguishing between different social concepts will be highlighted, as policy
interventions will be different for each of them. Social practices are grounded on
the desires and beliefs of individuals, especially individuals’ expectations about
what others in the reference group do and expect others to do. Mutual expectations
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support social conventions and social norms, and changing conventions and norms
requires coordinated change of individual expectations within the reference group:
mutual expectations and public knowledge are crucial to changing social practices.
We will distinguish among different types of expectations, their interaction, and
their role in social change. We will also discuss the psychological bases of norm
conformity, and how to measure for the presence of social norms.
2-5: In afternoon discussion sections, participants will be asked to identify the
various types of social practices that they know from personal and development
experiences. In particular, with special reference to the field cases they have
brought, they will be asked to identify and define: agents’ expectations, reactions to
transgressions, and the nature of emotional responses elicited by transgressions.
Compare their cases to cases discussed in the morning.
Thursday: Organizing Norm Change Throughout a Community
9-12: Gerry Mackie. A standard way to try to change a harmful social norm is by
enacting a legal norm. When do social norms retard or advance legal norms; when
do legal norms retard or advance social norms? Harmonization of norms. Another
standard way is by providing economic incentives. For changing social norms
directly, how to mobilize a small core group that over time brings about changes in
beliefs and in reciprocal expectations throughout a whole community, illustrated by
the end of foot binding in China. The importance of common knowledge in the
reference group. Concepts of core group, revaluation of alternatives, organized
diffusion, tipping point, and coordinated shift of reciprocal expectations (by public
declaration or otherwise) will be introduced in narrative form, and illustrated by
reference to development experiences.
2-5: Facilitators will review the material and encourage group questions and
discussion. Participants will describe dynamics of organized norm change in their
own personal and field experiences. They will examine their case study;
hypothesize how to form a core group, revalue alternatives, organize diffusion of
changed attitudes, and effectively coordinate shift of reciprocal expectations; and
how best to use legal norms.
Friday: Organized Norm Change in Rural and Urban Settings
9-12: Plenary session. Further illustrate and summarize prior course concepts with
strong and effective field experiences. Presentation of major theoretical and
practical results by Molly Melching, director of Tostan, on organizing collective
abandonment of FGM/C, early marriage, and other harmful community practices, in
Senegal and beyond in Africa. She will also conduct a human rights training session
from her nonformal education curriculum.
2-4: Plenary session (continued). Bicchieri and Mackie may at times briefly
summarize relevant points and connect them to course content.
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4-5. A showing of the film Bogota Change, about changing social norms in an urban
settings.
4.4 Second week program
Monday: Organized Norm Change in UNICEF Field Experiences
9-9:30: Presentation on Bogota Change.
9:30-11:30: Two field experiences will be presented by UNICEF personnel. The
Saleema effort in the Sudan, part of an integrated program at national, urban, and
rural levels, intended to change beliefs about the value of being uncut and reciprocal
expectations in the community about whether daughters should be cut.
Community-Led Total Sanitation worldwide, which actively changes beliefs and
reciprocal expectations in the community on sanitation issues.
11:30-12: Bicchieri and Mackie may at the end briefly summarize relevant points
and connect them to course content.
2-5: Discussion sessions on three UNICEF experiences and participant’s prior field
experiences and upcoming case studies.
Tuesday: Understanding Social Networks
9-12: Ryan Muldoon. Network analysis guides identification and mobilization of
key individuals and groups in the social network, which allows for efficient
program design. Presentation of social networks, social network analysis, and the
flow of persuasion and attitude change in different network topologies.
Depending on the structure of the network, information may flow freely or instead
be thwarted, may spread quickly or slowly, and may be more or less credible.
Diagrams of actual social networks from empirical studies and examples from
development will illustrate concepts. A typology of network interventions for the
development practitioner will be presented. Network measurement: network
methods, simple to complex, for identifying reference groups, including from DHS
and MICS; Kenya and Malawi “Diffusion and Ideational Change Projects” on social
influences on contraception, AIDS.
2-5: Facilitators will review the material and encourage group questions and
discussion. Students identify different network topologies in their case studies and
analyze how information is transmitted in the network. They will be asked to name
whom they would first mobilize in the community they are targeting for assistance.
They will consider how best to use existing data, and what new data to seek.
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Wednesday:
Evaluation
Transformative
Values
Deliberations;
Measurement
and
9-9:30 Hugo Mercier. Psychology of Belief Change.
9:30-11: Gerry Mackie. Values Deliberations. Reversal of a harmful social practice
requires recognition of an alternative and revaluations of old and new alternatives.
Principles of persuasion and attitude change in a community; why attitudes towards
social practices are slow to change, but can be changed with effort. Sustained values
deliberations (human rights education plus) seem to be a necessary factor in
bringing about community change in social norms. The contents and processes of
such programs -- Tostan in Africa, UNDP Community Capacity Enhancement -Community Conversation (on AIDS destigmatization and other topics), the Institute
of Human Rights Education’s HRE in Tamil Nadu and other Indian states -- will be
examined.
11-12: Gabriella de Vita and Gerry Mackie. Measurement. Much development
thinking, and most development data collection and analysis, assume that
individuals act independently of one another (except for simple information
transmission). Informal methods for identifying reference groups. How
Knowledge-Attitude-Practice profiles for Independent actions in a group differ
from KAP profiles for Interdependent actions (social norms) in a group.
Ethnographic (Mackie), and experimental/survey (Bicchieri) methods for
identifying social norms. How to measure and evaluate progress on changing
social norms (Donahue).
Thursday: Work on Case Studies, and Presentation of Case Studies
9-12: Individuals work on their case studies. Facilitators will be available to
participants for one-on-one sessions.
2-5: Facilitators will sort participants into six groups, based on common field
problems and other relevant criteria. Each participant will present her case study in
her assigned group. Nonparticipant personnel, including Bicchieri and Mackie, will
serially visit the six groups.
Friday: Case Studies Presentations, Continued
9-12: Case study presentations, continued.
2-4 Case study presentations.
4-5: Plenary Session. UNICEF leadership will close the session