Social Expectation Models

'Suggests that behavior which appears to be individual may be viewed as a social behavior...Individual practices are substantially the result of conformity to the expectations of others.

Two paths through which private acts may be socially influenced:

• Direct Experience - the social network communicates the private experience - for example expected and acceptable sexual practices through sexual experience with particular partners
• Outside of Direct Experience - for example through conversation amongst those in a social network, mass media, books, observation of others, all may provide as to what is expected or acceptable

May be that people are unable to articulate, or example, why they use condoms, they just do it. Their conformity reflects the demands of their social network without any reflective process producing awareness of those demands.

Need to ask the question - ‘How do groups change their behavior?' rather than ‘How do individuals change their behavior?'