"Who Has Next?" The Symbolic, Rational, and Methodical Use of Norms in Pickup Basketball

Abstract

In an attempt to develop more realistic images of interaction, I analyze an entire conversation between people waiting to play an informal game of basketball to illustrate how a combination of perspectives emphasizing the internalization of norms, rational use of norms, and talk about norms can inform a description of norm usage that is plausible to participants and observers. The resulting model shows that players interact with norms in mind, but invoke those norms in strategic ways, which then are reconsidered (and sometimes reconfigured) by way of talk. This unified theory of norms offers new opportunities for reconciling sociological imagery.