When Captain Cook asked the chiefs in Tahiti why they always ate apart and alone, they replied, “Because it is right.”
当库克船长问大溪地的厨师为什么他们总是分开独自吃饭时，他们回答：“因为这符合常理。”
If we ask Americans why they eat with knives and forks, or why their men wear pants instead of skirts or why they may be married to only one person at a time, we are likely to get similar and very uninformative answers because it's right, because that's the way it's done, because it's the custom or even I don't know.
如果我们问美国人为什么他们用刀叉吃饭，为什么他们那儿的男人穿裤子而不是穿裙子，或者为什么他们一次只能跟一个人结婚，我们可能得到同样没有信息量的回答，因为这符合常理、因为就该这么做、因为这是风俗或者我不知道。
The reason for these and countless other patterns of social behavior is that they are controlled by social norms shared rules or guide lines which prescribe the behavior that is appropriate in a given situation.
人们做这种或无数其他这类事情的原因是他们受控于一种社会行为准则，即在一种特定的情况下，怎么做才是恰当的。
Norms define how people ought to behave under particular circumstances in a particular society.
常规限定人们在特定的社会，特定的环境中应该怎么做。
We conform to norms so readily that we are hardly aware they exist. In fact we are much more likely to notice departures from norms than conformity to them.
我们极易认同这些常规，以至于我们都没有意识到它们的存在。事实上，相比符合常规，我们更容易注意到背离常规的事。
You will not be surprised if a stranger tried to shake hands when you were introduced, but you might be a little startled if they bowed, started to stroke you or kissed you on both cheeks.
当一个陌生人与你初次见面想跟你握手时，你不会感到吃惊，但是如果他们点头哈腰、轻抚或亲吻你的双颊时，你可能会感到一点惊讶。
Yet each of these other forms of greeting is appropriate in other parts of the world. When we visit another society whose norms are different, we quickly become aware that things we do this way, they do that way.
在世界上的其他地方，每一种这样的问候都是恰当的。当我们到访一个与自己的社会常规不同的地区时，我们很快能意识到某些事情我们这么做，而他们的做法却与我们不同。