Social adaptation function

The attitudes that help us feel part of the social environment are said to serve the functions of social adaptation. One example is the mind molecules mentioned above. Another example is the beliefs and attitudes of people who are ordered by the church or political party and are followed by their friends, family or neighbors; The real content of such beliefs and attitudes is less important than the social bonds that they are endowed with. To the extent that attitudes primarily fulfill the function of adaptation, they change when social norms change.
This was amply demonstrated in the American South in the 1950s, when legal racial segregation was abolished there. Surveys showed that Americans in the South were, in general, against desegregation and more strongly than Americans of the North, expressed a negative attitude towards African Americans. Some psychologists believed that South Americans are more authoritarian than northern, that is, that racial inclinations in the South perform the function of psychological defense. But Thomas Pettigrew, a social psychologist specializing in race relations, argued that racial relations in the South were primarily supported by simple conformism with social norms that dominated the region, that is, they performed the function of social adjustment.
Using a questionnaire to measure authoritarianism, Pettigrew discovered that southerners are no more authoritarian than northerners (although in both regions authoritarian individuals were more biased against African Americans than non-authoritarian ones). In addition, Southerners who were biased against African Americans were not necessarily biased against other groups — and this is at odds with the prediction of the theory of authoritarianism. Indeed, the South has historically been the least anti-Semitic region of the United States, and one of the studies of that time showed that white Southerners were not favorable to African Americans, but were quite supportive of Jews. In addition, veterans from the South, whose military experience was associated with other social norms, had much less strong prejudices than non-veterans, despite the fact that veterans of both North and South were more authoritarian than non-veterans.
The subsequent history of desegregation confirmed Pettigrew's analysis. It was shown that with the expansion of desegregation, the attitude towards a certain stage of it was unfavorable immediately before its implementation, but soon after its implementation it became favorable. For example, some communities accepted desegregation for public spaces, but were still against desegregation in schools; in other communities the picture was reversed. According to one study, about 40% of the sample had strong opinions for or against desegregation, but the remaining 60% tended toward the social norms that existed at that time, whatever they were.
It is often said that installations cannot be legitimized. In a literal sense, this is obviously true. But legalization and legal rulings change public policy and practice, and they, in turn, often lead to changes in social norms. To the extent that the attitudes of citizens serve social adjustment, they will also change. Under these conditions, the shortest way to change “hearts and minds” is to change behavior, changing social norms before.