We consider an expanded notion of social norms that renders them belief-dependent and partial, formulate a series of related testable predictions, and design an experiment based on a variant of the dictator game that tests for empirical relevance. Main results: Normative beliefs influence...

Social norms, though often implicit, are to a great extent communicated and made salient using natural language. They carry the notions that “the participant,” “the customer,” or “the worker” should behave in a certain way. In English, we refer to each of these personal entity nouns...