# A Theory of Appropriateness That Accounts for Norms of Rationality

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14050 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14050/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 Mar 2026.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [A Case Study on Emergent Cheating and Whistleblowing in Autonomous Research Swarms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04170/) (2026)
- [Stabilising Generative Models of Attitude Change](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.19791/) (2026)
- [From Certain Doom to Survival: Agent-Driven Self-Governance in LLM Agent Societies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22600/) (2026)
- [Reading the Room: Foundations, Design, and Challenges of Normative Competence in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10906/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose a society-first theory of normative appropriateness where individuals, modeled as pre-trained actors with cognitive architectures analogous to Large Language Models (LLMs), generate behavior via predictive pattern completion. Our theory posits that individuals act by completing distributed symbolic patterns based on context, answering questions such as "What does a person such as I do in a situation such as this?". This sense-making mechanism provides a parsimonious account of the key features of human norms: their context-dependence, arbitrariness, automaticity, dynamism, and their support from social sanctioning. It challenges rational-choice theories of social norms by accounting for their key features without needing to exogenously posit scalar rewards or preference relations. By distinguishing between explicit norms, which we associate with in-context adaptation, and implicit norms, which we associate with long-term memory, the theory reconceptualizes several foundational ideas in cognitive science. In particular, it gives an alternative account to the data traditionally seen as supporting dual-process models, and it flips the role of rationality, allowing us to construe it as adherence to culturally-contingent justification standards.