In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies.

The grammar of society

The grammar of society: the nature and dynamics of social norms

▪ Abstract In keeping with traditional sociological concerns about order and disorder, this essay addresses the dark side of organizations. To build a theoretical basis for the dark side as an integrated field of study, I review four literatures in order to make core ideas of each available to specialists in the others. Using a Simmelian-based case comparison method of analogical theorizing, I first consider sociological constructs that identify both the generic social form and the generic origin of routine nonconformity: how things go wrong in socially organized settings. Then I examine three types of routine nonconformity with adverse outcomes that harm the public: mistake, misconduct, and disaster produced in and by organizations. Searching for analogies and differences, I find that in common, routine nonconformity, mistake, misconduct, and disaster are systematically produced by the interconnection between environment, organizations, cognition, and choice. These patterns amplify what is known about so...

THE DARK SIDE OF ORGANIZATIONS: Mistake, Misconduct, and Disaster

We specify and test a rational choice model of corporate crime. This model includes measures of the perceived costs and benefits of corporate crime (for both the firm and the individual), perceptions of shame, persons' assessment of the opprobrium of the act, and contextual characteristics of the organization. Consistent with this model, we find that intentions to commit four types of corporate crime are affected by sanction threats (formal and informal), moral evaluations, and organizational factors. Net of the various incentives and disincentives for corporate crime, persons' personal moral code was found to be a very important source of inhibition. In fact, when moral inhibitions were high, considerations of the cost and benefit of corporate crime were virtually superfluous. When moral inhibitions were weak, however, persons were deterred by threats of formal and informal sanctions and by organizational context. We contend that theoretical models of corporate crime and public policy efforts must contain both instrumental (threats of punishment) and deontological (appeals to morality) factors

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3054128.pdf

Sanction threats and appeals to morality : Testing a rational choice model of corporate crime

We analyze the social organization of three well-known price-fixing conspiracies in the heavy electrical equipment industry. Although aspects of collusion have been studied by industrial organization economists and organizational criminologists, the organization of conspiracies has remained virtually unexplored. Using archival data, we reconstruct the actual communication networks involved in conspiracies in switchgear transformers, and turbines. We find that the structure of illegal networks is driven primarily by the need to maximize concealment, rather than the need to maximize efficiency. However, network structure is also contingent on information-processing requirements imposed by product and market characteristics. Our individual-level model predicts verdict (guilt or innocence), sentence, and fine as functions of personal centrality in the illegal network, network structure, management level, and company size. "People of the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some diversion to raise prices."

The social organization of conspiracy: illegal networks in the heavy electrical equipment industry*

Twenty years ago the sociologist Donald Clemmer introduced the concept of prisonization to account for the changes inmates undergo during periods of confinement. This paper reexamines the concept of prisonization and provides an empirical test of the processes Clemmer described. Because of Clemmer's concern with the process of induction, little attention has been paid to changes inmates may exhibit as they approach the time of release. Evidence from a western state reformatory is consistent with Clemmer's analysis when length of time served in prison is taken as the relevant time variable. When inmates are classified into phases of their institutional career, however, there is evidence of a recovery process and a shedding of the prison culture that operates prior to parole. The evidence suggests a reformulation of the effects of imprisonment on inmates and poses further problems relevant to other total institutions.

Socialization in Correctional Communities

This paper examines the severity of sentences meted out to persons convicted in federal court of presumptively white-collar crimes. Most of the items examined were suggested by federal district court judges and were drawn from presentence investigation reports. The sample provided enough variation in social status to allow testing of hypotheses about the relation of sentencing to social class background. The results indicate that sentencing is more predictable than some recent accounts would suggest. Important correlates of the decision to incarcerate reflect a) the seriousness of the criminal act, b) the character of the criminal actor, c) the statutory category of violation, and d) such other variables as the sex and age of the defendant and the district of conviction. A different model is necessary to explain differences in length of incarceration. The chief finding with respect to social class is that the probability of imprisonment rises with the occupational status of the defendant. Various interpretations of the findings are suggested and assessed.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2095164.pdf

Sentencing the White-Collar Offender: Rhetoric and Reality

This paper tests the hypothesis that financially and organizationally stronger parties tend to prevail in litigation against weaker parties, either because the normative structure of the American legal system has favored "the haves," or because judges' attitudes do, or because stronger parties have strategic and representational advantages in litigation. The study is based on a sample of 5,904 cases from sixteen state supreme courts, 1870-1970. According to our data, stronger parties, especially larger governmental units, did tend to achieve an advantage over weaker parties, but the advantage generally was rather small. The stronger parties' edge recurs in subsamples for different types of cases, time periods, and types of legal representation. It is attributed in part to the greater litigational capabilities of stronger parties.

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Do the Haves Come out Ahead - Winning and Losing in State Supreme Courts, 1870-1970

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The Organization as Weapon in White-Collar Crime

Appellate court opinions, carefully indexed and preserved in law libraries, are a tremendous resource for historians and social scientists. In the theory of the common law, these opinions are the law; they stand in the center of the legal system. Their power is enhanced by the common law doctrine that links them in a chain of influence and causation-the doctrine of precedent. Their precedential value means that they are also powerful resources for the practicing lawyer-often the basic material with which he works. But these appellate opinions also are crucial documents for any study of judicial culture. The reasoning of the judges, over the years, reveals judges' notions of law and of the judicial role; it is an essential window into the legal culture of the judges. The style of opinions is as good an indicator as we have of what counts as sound legal reasoning for any given era. Even objective aspects of judicial opinions can be revealing, as Merryman's studies of California citation since 1950 and Goutal's work on opinion length show.' Moreover, a more policy-oriented conception of the judicial role arguably could be re-

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Stanton Wheeler

Papers

Socialization in Correctional Communities

Sentencing the White-Collar Offender: Rhetoric and Reality

Do the Haves Come out Ahead - Winning and Losing in State Supreme Courts, 1870-1970

The Organization as Weapon in White-Collar Crime

State Supreme Courts: A Century of Style and Citation