Unleashed

Social change often comes from unleashing hidden preferences and constructing novel preferences. Under the pressure of social norms, people sometimes falsify their preferences. Once norms are weakened or revised, it becomes possible to discover preexisting preferences. Because those preferences were concealed, large-scale movements are both possible and difficult to predict. Revision of norms can also construct rather than uncover preferences. Once norms are altered, people come to hold preferences they did not hold before. These points bear on the rise and fall of discrimination and help illuminate the dynamics of social cascades and the effects of social norms on diverse practices and developments.