Emergence of and Compliance with New Social Norms

In crisis situations, people have to change their behaviour. A collective learning process begins and new patterns of order emerge. Externalities of behaviour lead to the emergence of new social norms. But are the social norms also followed? A closer examination must take into account the different character of social norms. Following the theory of Ullmann-Margalit (1977), coordination norms or conventions (Lewis 1969) have different consequences for norm oriented behaviour than cooperation norms. This distinction is also important for law-making. There is no "free-rider problem" with coordination norms, but there is one with cooperation norms. This paper examines the question of the characteristics of new norms which emerged during the corona crisis, such as the requirement for distance, the obligation to wear masks and cooperation in the digital tracing of infection chains. The analysis leads to conditions which may explain the degree of compliance with new social norms.