MCAT topics → Social Processes Influencing Behavior → Social Norms (Folkways, Mores, Taboos) and Anomie

Social Norms (Folkways, Mores, Taboos) and Anomie

MCAT trap: Reverses the definitions of folkways (etiquette, mild) and mores (moral standards, serious). Folkways are informal norms of etiquette with mild sanctions; mores are norms tied to moral values whose violation is considered seriously wrong.

Social norms are the unwritten (and sometimes written) rules that govern behavior in a society. The MCAT breaks these into a hierarchy: folkways, mores, taboos, and laws — each differing in moral weight, severity of violation, and type of sanction. Anomie, Durkheim's concept, sits alongside this as a macro-level explanation for what happens when those norms break down. Together, these ideas show up in the Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations section, typically in passages about social behavior, deviance, or societal change.

The exam tests this at multiple levels. At the recall level, you need clean definitions and the ability to rank norm types by severity. At the application level, you'll get a passage describing a scenario — someone breaking a social rule — and you have to classify the violation correctly and predict the likely social response. The trickiest passages drop you into an unfamiliar cultural context and ask you to identify norm type without tipping you off with obvious language.

What trips students up most is the folkways/mores reversal — many people intuitively assume 'mores' sounds minor (like 'more of the same') and 'folkways' sounds important (like traditions), when it's the opposite. The other major trap is treating anomie as a description of individual bad behavior. It's not. Anomie is a societal diagnosis, not a personal one. If you walk away remembering nothing else: anomie = society-level normlessness from rapid change, not a synonym for deviance.

Common misconceptions

Common mistake
Wrong: Folkways carry strong moral weight and violations are considered deeply wrong, while mores are minor etiquette rules.
Right: Folkways are informal norms of etiquette with mild sanctions; mores are norms tied to moral values whose violation is considered seriously wrong.
The names are counterintuitive, but the logic is clear once you anchor them correctly: folkways govern everyday etiquette (think table manners or dress codes) and violations earn mild social disapproval at most. Mores are tied to a society's core moral values — violating them is considered genuinely wrong, not just rude, and sanctions are far more serious. Remember it this way: mores shares a root with 'moral.' If the violation would make most people say 'that's disgusting' or 'that's wrong,' you're in mores territory; if it makes them say 'that's awkward,' you're in folkways territory.
Common mistake
Wrong: Anomie refers to an individual's deviant behavior or personal moral failure.
Right: Anomie (Durkheim) is a societal-level condition of normlessness arising from rapid social change that weakens the bond between individuals and society.
Anomie is not a word for a bad person or a deviant act — it's a diagnosis of a society, not an individual. Durkheim introduced it to describe what happens when rapid social change (industrialization, revolution, economic collapse) erodes the shared norms that normally integrate people into society. When those norms weaken at the societal level, individuals lose their social anchor, which can then lead to higher rates of deviance or suicide — but the anomie itself is the macro condition, not the behavior that follows from it.
Common mistake
Wrong: Taboos and laws are the same because both involve severe prohibitions.
Right: Taboos are informal, culturally enforced prohibitions (e.g., incest) with no formal legal mechanism; laws are formally codified norms enforced by the state.
Both taboos and laws can involve severe prohibitions, but their enforcement mechanisms are completely different. Taboos are culturally enforced — violate them and you face ostracism, disgust, or informal punishment from the community, but no court will charge you. Laws are formally codified by the state and enforced through official institutions (police, courts, prisons). On the MCAT, if a passage describes a prohibition enforced through community shaming or cultural ritual, that's a taboo; if it involves state apparatus, that's a law. Severity alone doesn't determine the category.
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What the exam tests

  1. Distinguish between folkways, mores, taboos, and laws by their moral weight, the severity of their sanctions, and whether enforcement is informal or state-backed.
  2. Explain Durkheim's concept of anomie as a macro-level societal condition — not individual deviance — caused by rapid social change that severs the bond between individuals and the collective norms of their society.
  3. Read a passage describing a norm violation and correctly classify it (folkway, more, taboo, or law), then predict the appropriate social sanction that follows from that classification.

Can you avoid these mistakes?

A dinner guest uses the wrong fork at a formal meal and gets a few side-glances from other guests. What type of norm has been violated, and what does the mild sanction tell you about the norm type?
A sociologist studying a post-war country notes that crime rates, divorce rates, and suicide rates all spiked sharply after the economy collapsed and traditional institutions dissolved. Which Durkheimian concept best explains this pattern, and why is this NOT simply a description of individual deviance?
A passage describes a community that strictly prohibits marriage between first cousins. Violations result in the individual being permanently excluded from the community, but there is no formal legal penalty. Is this violation best classified as a taboo, a more, or a law — and what is the key feature that determines your answer?
True or false: A person who commits a taboo violation in one culture may not be violating any norm in another culture. What does this tell you about the nature of taboos compared to laws?

Related topics

Social Facilitation and Deindividuation Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility Social Loafing Conformity (Asch) and Peer Pressure

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