Cultural anthropology and psychology are not the first disciplines one thinks of in combination with computer science and informatics. The computational study of social norms seems like science fiction, reminiscent of Hari Seldon’s “psychohistory” in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. Yet serious study of human behavior and cultural standards and expectations needs to be done in field studies, controlled experimentation, and in simulation studies. At times, shifts in social norms leave many surprised, puzzled, or dismayed. For example, the shift of social opposition to gay marriage to increased acceptance happened quite quickly, much more quickly than many had anticipated. This slim volume introduces a challenging research area to the computational and informatics community. In an introductory chapter, the editors present the basic problems and approaches in the study of social norms to those first encountering the topic, plus a general outline of the book. The actual content is presented in the following three parts consisting of ten chapters.

The first part, on the complex roots of social norms, consumes 60 percent of the entire volume. The approach is non-computational. The fundamental anthropological, sociological, and psychological issues in the study of social norms are discussed thoroughly but succinctly in the five chapters in this part. Chapter 2 (the first chapter in this part) covers the problem of erroneous perception of social norms, the mismatch between one’s belief of what the norm might be and one’s own experience or observation. The primary evidence discussed is perceptions of risky behavior in young people’s use, or misuse, of alcohol. The mechanism by which changes take place through reconciling our beliefs with our perceptions of what others believe is the subject of chapter 3. The fourth chapter explores the relationship between the emergence of social norms and the cognitive capabilities of people. These abilities extend beyond the intellectual and include emotion and cultural preferences. The fifth chapter in this part criticizes individualistic approaches to the development of norms by emphasizing the human tendency to form social groups in which similar norms are shared and expressed in shared intentions. This is also the first place in which computational models of the evolution of social norms are mentioned. The last chapter in the first part deals with the enforcement of social norms by the sanctioning of behaviors that flout norms.

The second part of the book has three chapters addressing agent-based modeling. The first chapter of this set describes norm emergence as the result of behaviors of drivers of leased cars in response to the provisions of the Dutch tax system affecting these vehicles. The second chapter examines the emergence and application of norms that take place when people share attitudes and evaluations. A large segment of this chapter describes the results from using the simulation program EMIL-I-A. The third chapter reports studies on the role of transparency and visibility of behavior among agents sharing common resources, and concludes that normative behavior and the integrity of the commons can be maintained only with completely open and transparent information. A different simplified simulation is described based on a simple 30 x 30 grid and several agents acting under a set of rules simulating social norms.

The third part consists of two chapters in which the authors reflect on the two previous parts of the book. The first chapter considers the extent to which social structures influence social norms, especially the role of being observed during testing human subjects. The last chapter is a reflection on the complexity and difficulty of studying social norms due to the effect of cognitive factors, context, and dynamic changes that ultimately reflect changes in norms.

This book is long on sociology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, and short on computer studies. It is frustrating that the software is not available for download and testing. Yet this book is worthy of attention because it introduces a challenging research area to a more general audience. There are many difficult questions raised in the book, such as whether the complexity of real-life behaviors can be successfully interpreted by simpler models. This is an optimistic question in that it claims a hope that human behavior and social structures are not entirely perverse.