By the late 19th century, the expansion of European empires had spread European norms and customs, such as diplomatic immunity and the legal equality of states, throughout the world.
In the 15th century the arrival of Greek scholars in Europe from the collapsing Byzantine Empire and the introduction of the printing press spurred the development of scientific, humanistic, and individualist thought, while the expansion of ocean navigation by European explorers spread European norms throughout the world and broadened the intellectual and geographic horizons of western Europe.
Three explanations dominate: a materialist approach; Bourdieu's distinctive class-based cultures; and, the spread of norms and emotions within social networks.
The teaching of the standard languages in the schools and the high levels of literacy have tended to spread the urban norms of speaking.
One such dynamic society was ancient Greece, whose ethical norms spread as it grew, widely, and perhaps it was no coincidence that those ethics were developed by philosophers debating alongside merchants at the central marketplace called the agora.
Its eventual adoption was largely due to increased literacy and, at the cultural level, to the spread of individualistic norms of privacy and anonymity to certain classes of the population, notably peasants and workers.
Or individual social capital can make more possible diffusion of health information between individuals and spread positive behavioral norms through the communities [ 15, 16].
The trade-off involved acceptance of increased human-rights protections domestically and of potential punishments for American soldiers in international courts, in return for the spread of these legal norms to more countries and the punishment of more international criminals does not appeal to a wide enough constituency.
An evolutionary model provides a description of the conditions under which social norms may spread.
More sophisticated research designs are required to explain contextual influences over subpopulation behaviors, and recent insights into the contagious spread of behaviors and norms among group members over large distances highlight the relevance of the nascent fields of cultural epidemiology and cultural geography.
