Conventions gain force because unmet expectations trigger anger regardless of material stakes

Evidence

Avoiding death is an excellent incentive to follow the conventions of road traffic, but why do humans care so much about conforming to such superficial conventions as moptops and tuxedos? Conventions provide a “solution” when trying to coordinate behaviors with others: the Beatles all wanted to have a unified look that was distinct from others, so they embraced the moptop. Once established, conventions then draw an additional power from emotional responses to expectations. Our brains prefer when other people meet our expectations, because this means we don’t have to expend extra mental energy on thinking through alternatives. When others fail to meet our expectations in a negative way, we become frustrated and angry—even in times when the underlying behavior has no material impact on us. We then convert these emotional responses, either positive or negative, into outward expressions of our feelings. Meeting expectations elicits smiles and cheers. When they aren’t met, the sociologist George Homans writes, an individual “has in effect been deprived of a reward, and he repays deprivation with hostility.” — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 127

Categorization

• XREF: Recall the road-traffic/death example at the top connects to earlier chapters’ framing of conventions solving coordination problems as a status payoff. — connects to: Political violence arises from frustration over unmet value expectations; Only groups perceived as powerful and hostile get scapegoated for frustrations — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1584; Collective frustration acts through ideology rather than directly causing aggression — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1573 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Emotions like anger drive and independently cost norm enforcement #expands (0.82) — Ernst Fehr, Third-Party Punishment and Social Norms, 135
• Political violence arises from frustration over unmet value expectations #corroborates (0.78)
• Collective frustration acts through ideology rather than directly causing aggression #qualifies (0.76) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1573
• Arbitrary conventions lock in once enough participants adopt them #expands (0.75) — Jörg Sydow, Georg Schreyögg, and Jochen Koch, Organizational Path Dependence, 79
• Only groups perceived as powerful and hostile get scapegoated for frustrations #qualifies (0.74) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1584
• Anger deters aggression and seeks bargaining power rather than fairness. #complicates (0.74) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 661
• Group anger drives confrontation while fear drives avoidance #expands (0.73) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 339
• Relieving frustration can increase scapegoating when the movement takes credit #complicates (0.72)
• Anger fuels collective action that challenges structural inequality. #exemplifies (0.72) — Johanna Ray Vollhardt and Michelle Sinayobye Twali, Emotion-Based Reconciliation Requires…, 62