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TopNormative Vocabulary
Before proceeding further we need to define some terms that are related to norms and that we consider to be the basic vocabulary for a common understanding of the three main branches of research (sociology, economy and multiagent systems). The interactionist norms that we are analyzing in this work are created, oriented, controlled and imposed by agents. Following Coleman (1998) agents are grouped by their role in the norm. There are two basic roles: the beneficiaries and the targets. Targets are the actors for whom the norm is specified for. Beneficiaries are those actors who benefit from the norm, potentially hold the norm and are potential sanctioners of the target actors. In the same example from Coleman, in the norm “Children should be seen and not heard”, the target are childrens and the beneficiaries are adults around those children looking for some peaceful environment.
Another characteristic of norms describes how the norms affect the actors.
The norms where the set of target and beneficiaries are completely disjoint are defined by Coleman as Disjoint norms.
However, the set of target actors and beneficiaries might not necessarily be disjoint for a norm.
Coleman defines the norms where each actor is simultaneously beneficiary and target of the norm as Conjoint norms.
However these distinction are the extremes. Coleman presents different intermediate cases with different types of inclusions of both sets of targets and beneficiaries shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Coleman’s inclusion relation of beneficiaries and targets of a norm for different types of norms