Nevertheless, social norms are still poorly understood. Despite some recent progress (Hechter & Opp, 2001), we still know very little about how they are formed, the forces determining their content, how and why they change, their cognitive and emotional underpinnings, how they relate to values, how they shape our perceptions of justice and its violations, and how they are shaped by and shape our neuropsychological architecture. In short, social norms are one of the big unsolved problems in the behavioral sciences.

XREF: Connects to broader sociological theory about norms, institutions, and collective behavior — relevant context for anyone studying social coordination or norm change models.

Ernst Fehr, Third-Party Punishment and …, loc. 8