D_Malik comments on Mistakes repository - Less Wrong
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One idea: Social power is contagious, so people want to associate with people that other people want to associate with. This leads to information cascades - one type of person has more power for some reason, so people want to associate with that type of person, so even more people want to associate with that type of person - and the "type of person" that this converges to gets called "normal".
Another idea: By caring about social norms, you signal that you care about not having people disapprove of you, which gives the group power over you - "I'll limit my sheep's grazing of the commons, because I don't want to look bad."