# Mores
**Mores** (pronounced more-rays) are a category of informal social norms, that is, unwritten rules of behavior, that carry strong moral significance for a group: people regard conforming to them as a matter of right and wrong, and violating them draws serious sanctions such as social or religious exclusion.[1](https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/03%3A_Culture/3.02%3A_The_Symbolic_Nature_of_Culture/3.2J%3A_Folkways_and_Mores) The term was introduced into sociology by the American sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), who borrowed it from the Latin word for customs.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Definition | Popular habits and traditions that include a judgment that they are conducive to societal welfare and exert coercion on the individual to conform, although they are not coordinated by any authority (Sumner & Keller 1927)[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner) |
| Origin of the term | Borrowed from the Latin word for "customs" by William Graham Sumner, who coined "folkways" in his 1906 book *Folkways*[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner) |
| Relation to folkways | Mores are fewer and more coercive than folkways; a person who breaks a folkway earns disapproval, while one who breaks a more is usually punished, often severely[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner) |
| Typical examples | Incest taboos and rules against in-group murder, rape, and cannibalism[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/norms) |
| Enforcement | Informal; sanctions range from ridicule to extreme punishment, and violations can bring social and religious exclusion[1](https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/03%3A_Culture/3.02%3A_The_Symbolic_Nature_of_Culture/3.2J%3A_Folkways_and_Mores) • [3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/norms) |
| Relation to law | Laws are folkways and mores given the specific sanction of the politically organized group; laws are formulated and positive, while mores are unformulated and undefined[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner) • [4](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/9a85e859-3388-4d98-970d-87ebf01866c5/section/b5c1bfe7-84e8-43d5-9c65-e01cee70e840) |
## Origin in Sumner's sociology
At Yale College, William Graham Sumner held an influential post teaching sociology and politics, and he led the American Sociological Association between 1908 and 1909; in *Folkways*, his pioneering textbook of sociology that appeared in 1906, he introduced the term folkways as a label for a society's habits and customs.[5](https://books.google.com/books/about/Folkways.html?id=DoY-tEMgJ8UC) He coined "folkways" but borrowed "mores" from the Latin word for customs.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner)
Sumner defined mores as "the popular habits and traditions, when they include a judgment that they are conducive to societal welfare, and when they exert a coercion on the individual to conform to them, although they are not coordinated by any authority."[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner) In his account, folkways arise from the repetition of adjustive acts by individuals responding to a similar social or individual need, through largely unreflective trial-and-error adjustment.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/norms) As with the folkways, mores build up in layers around central points of social concern, involving institutions dealing with sex and family life as well as with worship and religious organizations.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner)
## How mores differ from folkways, taboos, and laws
The categories in Sumner's typology are commonly classified by the reaction to violation: folkways (breaking a rule makes you odd), mores (breaking a rule makes you bad), taboos (breaking a rule produces horror), and laws (rules formally enforced by an authority).[6](https://hexasociology.com/learn/norms-folkways-mores-taboos-laws)
**Folkways.** Folkways are informal rules and norms that, while not offensive to violate, are expected to be followed; they cover routine or casual interaction, such as appropriate greetings and proper dress, and they draw the line between what is polite and what is rude.[1](https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/03%3A_Culture/3.02%3A_The_Symbolic_Nature_of_Culture/3.2J%3A_Folkways_and_Mores) Violating a folkway does not invite punishment, but may bring reprimands or warnings.[1](https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/03%3A_Culture/3.02%3A_The_Symbolic_Nature_of_Culture/3.2J%3A_Folkways_and_Mores) To illustrate the difference: skipping the tie at a formal dinner party breaches a folkway and might earn a man some disapproving glances, but showing up in nothing besides a tie would break a more and provoke a harsher reaction.[1](https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/03%3A_Culture/3.02%3A_The_Symbolic_Nature_of_Culture/3.2J%3A_Folkways_and_Mores)
**Mores.** Certain folkways become mores when they are well established and supported by the belief that they are proper, right, and indispensable; they are ordinarily thought to be supported by diffuse common agreement.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/norms) When they are laid down by society as ethical principles, they constitute morals.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner) Mores constitute an ideal of "the man as he should be"; a child acquires an awareness of this ideal before being capable of reasoning about the rationality or desirability of particular mores, and takes their rightness for granted.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner)
**Laws.** In Sumner's framework, laws are folkways and mores given the added specific sanction of the group as it is organized politically.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner) Sumner distinguished the two characters sharply: laws and institutions have a rational, practical, positive character and are more mechanical and utilitarian, while the element of sentiment and faith inheres in the mores, which are unformulated and undefined. Laws, as positive prescriptions, supersede the mores so far as they are adopted, and the mores come into operation where laws and tribunals fail.[4](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/9a85e859-3388-4d98-970d-87ebf01866c5/section/b5c1bfe7-84e8-43d5-9c65-e01cee70e840) Because the categories are informal, the same behavior can fall under more than one, and classifications shift across cultures, settings, and time.[7](https://emotionnest.com/folkways-vs-mores-vs-laws/) Laws may codify mores, contradict them, or lead them.[6](https://hexasociology.com/learn/norms-folkways-mores-taboos-laws)
## Sanctions and enforcement
Mores are enforced through social sanctions rather than formal codes. Deviation from custom can draw negative sanctions ranging from ridicule to extreme punishment; sanctions are slight for trivial deviations and severe for serious ones.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/norms) Violating mores can result in social and religious exclusions.[1](https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/03%3A_Culture/3.02%3A_The_Symbolic_Nature_of_Culture/3.2J%3A_Folkways_and_Mores) Some definitions of mores add a further criterion, the presence of an overt philosophical justification of these customs as indispensable to social welfare.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/norms)
## Mores in modern norms research
Contemporary sociology treats mores within the broader study of social norms, a foundational concept that saw a proliferation of research across the social sciences in the two decades before 2020 after an earlier period of skepticism about norms as overly deterministic and inattentive to social conflict, inequalities, and agency.[8](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054658) A 2020 review by Christine Horne of Washington State University and Stefanie Mollborn of the [University of Colorado Boulder](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-colorado-boulder) organized the field around three theoretical approaches, consequentialist, relational, and agentic, applied to where norms come from, why people enforce them, and how they are applied, and proposed an integrated framework aimed especially at norm change and erosion.[8](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054658)
A separate line of work in organizational behavior and psychology, labeled "normology" by Michael W. Morris, Ying-yi Hong, Chi-yue Chiu, and Zhi Liu in 2015, distinguishes norms that exist objectively, as behavioral regularities, patterns of sanctioning, and institutionalized rules, from norms that exist subjectively as perceived descriptive norms, perceived injunctive norms, and personal norms. Their account treats the two perceived forms as distinct navigational devices, "social autopilot" and "social radar," and distils three classic theories of why people adhere to norms: internalization, social identity, and rational choice.[9](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597815000084)
**Norm change.** Recent research studies how norms, including norms that regulate stable practices such as tipping, food, and everyday speech, emerge, evolve, and pass tipping points at which change becomes rapid.[10](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9125228/) • [11](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10799731/) The same literature notes that norms are not inherently beneficial: examples include norms that promote blood feuds, hate speech, compliance with protection rackets, corruption, or female genital mutilation.[10](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9125228/) [Laboratory](https://www.edgepedia.org/laboratory) work on the persistence of arbitrary norms has found that groups with a high authoritarian orientation perpetuated arbitrary norms for more generations than low-authoritarian groups, while in low-authoritarian groups the norms rapidly declined.[12](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1271232/)
## References
1. [3.2J: Folkways and Mores, Social Sci LibreTexts (Boundless Sociology)](https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Sociology/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociology_%28Boundless%29/03%3A_Culture/3.02%3A_The_Symbolic_Nature_of_Culture/3.2J%3A_Folkways_and_Mores)
2. [William Graham Sumner, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-biographies/william-graham-sumner)
3. [Norms, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/norms)
4. [Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (CUNY Manifold edition of Sumner, 1906)](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/9a85e859-3388-4d98-970d-87ebf01866c5/section/b5c1bfe7-84e8-43d5-9c65-e01cee70e840)
5. [Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs and Morals, William Graham Sumner, Google Books entry](https://books.google.com/books/about/Folkways.html?id=DoY-tEMgJ8UC)
6. [Norms: Folkways, Mores, Taboos, Laws, Hexa Sociology](https://hexasociology.com/learn/norms-folkways-mores-taboos-laws)
7. [Folkways vs. Mores vs. Laws: Differences & Examples](https://emotionnest.com/folkways-vs-mores-vs-laws/)
8. [Christine Horne and Stefanie Mollborn (2020). Norms: An Integrated Framework. Annual Review of Sociology 46:467–487](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054658)
9. [Michael W. Morris, Ying-yi Hong, Chi-yue Chiu, Zhi Liu (2015). Normology: Integrating insights about social norms to understand cultural dynamics. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 129:1–13](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597815000084)
10. [A research agenda for the study of social norm change (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, via PMC)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9125228/)
11. [Social norm change: drivers and consequences (Theme Issue, via PMC)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10799731/)
12. [Arbitrary norms and social change in high- and low-authoritarian societies, PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1271232/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Social life and human behavior*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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