Inappropriate0
Neutral+2.5
Appropriate
Everyday norms around the world
Choose a behaviour and a setting, then compare the society averages.
All societies +
How appropriate is kissing on a city sidewalk? −2.5 = inappropriate · +2.5 = appropriate
About the data & this map +
How to read the map.
Each colour represents a society’s mean appropriateness rating for the selected behaviour and setting. Purple is more inappropriate, pale tones are closer to neutral, and ochre is more appropriate. Grey means that no value is available for that society and combination.
Hover over or tap a country for its exact value. The sentence below the map shows the lowest and highest available society averages for the current combination.
What the numbers mean
The scale runs from −2.5 (extremely inappropriate) through 0 (neutral) to +2.5 (extremely appropriate).
These are society-level averages, not descriptions of every person in a society. Differences shown here are descriptive and should not be read as tests of statistical significance.
The open All societies section contains the same values in a searchable list, including study societies that are difficult to select on the map.
IMPORTANT · INDEPENDENT REMIX · ORIGINAL RESEARCH CREDIT
Their research. This is a remix.
This website is an independent remix by Jörgen Löwenfeldt. It is not the original research website, a new study, or an official publication of Global Social Norms or the Institute for Futures Studies.
The research, survey and underlying findings are the work of the Global Social Norms research collaboration. Jörgen Löwenfeldt did not conduct the study or collect these responses. His contribution here is the redesigned interface and the random-discovery experience. No affiliation with, or endorsement by, the researchers or their institutions is implied.
Who conducted the research?
The 2025 paper is authored by Kimmo Eriksson, Pontus Strimling, Irina Vartanova, Brent Simpson, Minna Persson and a large international team of co-authors. The complete authorship and institutional affiliations are listed in the original paper. Credit belongs to that full collaboration, including its local research teams.
Reference: Eriksson, K., Strimling, P., Vartanova, I., et al. (2025). Everyday norms have become more permissive over time and vary across cultures. Communications Psychology, 3, Article 145. DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00324-4.
The project reports 25,422 respondents in 90 societies, with data collected in 2023 and 2024. The Institute for Futures Studies (Institutet för Framtidsstudier) presents the original interactive maps on its website, linked alongside.
What has been changed here?
The layout, typography, colours, navigation and random-selection feature have been redesigned. The displayed society scores come from the public reference map’s data bundle. They have not been replaced with generated estimates. Missing values remain missing. The lowest and highest ratings are calculated from those published scores for the selected combination.
This is a visual interpretation of published data, not a replication of the study or a substitute for its methods and limitations. Any errors introduced by this remix should not be attributed to the original researchers. For scholarly citation, cite the research paper and its authors, not this website as the source of the findings.
Go directly to the originals
- Global Social Norms: Everyday NormsOriginal project, study description, publications and interactive maps.
- Institute for Futures Studies: interactive mapsThe original IFFS presentation that inspired this remix.
- The 2025 research paper and full author listScientific findings, methods, affiliations, contributions and supplementary material.
- Original everyday-norms interactive mapThe map linked from the research project’s website.
- Reference implementation and embedded data used hereThe English map bundle from the public EverydayNormsMaps repository.
- EverydayNormsMaps source repositoryOriginal map implementations and associated files.
- Related original map: the observer effectA separate visualisation from the same project. Its observer comparisons are not shown in this remix.
- Related research: Simpson et al. (2026)How norms depend on the presence and status of observers: The relational contingency of everyday behaviors in 90 societies. American Sociological Review. A related study, distinct from the 2025 paper cited above.
Original research and data: Global Social Norms and the authors cited above.
Independent website remix: Jörgen Löwenfeldt. All original credits and applicable rights remain with their respective authors and rights holders.