Group Dynamics and Social Norm Formation | Concepts

Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use

Brown and Levinson’s Politeness develops a model of face‑saving communication that explains how speakers across cultures use linguistic strategies to mitigate social conflict and maintain mutual respect. Central to the theory is the idea that all individuals have a desire to protect both their own and others’ “face,” leading to varied politeness strategies depending on social context and power relations.

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The Bases of Social Power

French and Raven’s model identifies five (later expanded to six) fundamental bases of social power that explain how individuals influence others: reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, expert, and informational power. These power bases describe different sources of influence ranging from formal authority to personal persuasion and expertise.

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The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind explores the psychological bases of moral reasoning, arguing that people’s moral judgments are driven more by intuitive, emotional processes than by deliberate reasoning, and that ideological divisions stem from differences in moral foundations. He proposes that understanding moral psychology can help explain political and cultural polarization.

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The Psychology of the Internet

Patricia Wallace’s The Psychology of the Internet provides a comprehensive research‑based overview of how online environments shape human behavior, emotions, and social interaction across contexts such as impression formation, group dynamics, aggression, attraction, altruism, privacy, gaming, development, and gender. The book integrates classic and contemporary psychological research to explain why people behave differently online and how those behaviors both reflect and inform social life on the Internet.

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The Law of Group Polarization

Sunstein explores how deliberation among like-minded individuals tends to amplify their preexisting views, a phenomenon he terms group polarization. He proposes that this effect is not just a quirk of psychology but a reliable pattern with implications for law, politics, and public discourse.

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Triangulating the Self: Identity Processes in a Connected Era

Davis examines how individuals negotiate identity in a networked era marked by digital social technologies, highlighting the challenge of maintaining a coherent balance between idealized and authentic self‑presentations. She identifies conditions such as the fluidity between digital and physical contexts, expectations of accuracy, and overlapping social networks that shape contemporary identity processes.

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Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest

Twitter and Tear Gas analyzes how digital technologies and social media have transformed protest movements, giving activists unprecedented ability to mobilize large numbers quickly while also exposing critical weaknesses in sustaining long‑term organization and strategy. Tufekci argues that networked online movements possess powerful strengths but are fragile in the face of institutional counter‑measures and lack the deeper capacities of traditional movements.

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